


Redemption

by Miko no da (Miko)



Series: Sinners & Saints [10]
Category: Weiß Kreuz
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-10-01
Updated: 2004-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-05 06:01:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 14
Words: 56,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3108713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miko/pseuds/Miko%20no%20da
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Schwartz is torn apart by a monster from the past, and it's up to Weiss to bring them back together again.</p><p>(Posting OLD fics from my defunct website)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Nagi stumbled along, one hand pressed to the walls of the buildings lining the street to help him stay upright. The other arm hung uselessly at his side, dislocated. A trail of blood splashes marked his path, but he was oblivious to the pain of his injuries. He couldn't remember where he was... or why he was there... or where he was going... but he knew it was very important that he keep moving, that he reach his destination, wherever it was.

One step. Another. Hitched breath as he put his weight down on an ankle that was probably broken. Ignore it... it wasn't important. Just keep walking, one step after another, and he'd get there eventually.

The area he was in was mostly day-time shops, with residences over them. It was well after midnight, and the streets were deserted, only an occasional light shining in a window to show that someone was still awake. There was nobody to see him, nobody to stop him or help him. Just as well... if he stopped moving he was sure he'd fall over, and then he might never get up again.

The half-familiar perfume of exotic flowers made him look up. It had been a warm, muggy day, and scents lingered in the air long after the flower displays had been brought inside for the night. Nagi stared at the store in front of him for a long moment before finally recognizing it... the Koneko no Sumu.

Of course! The Koneko... Weiss... he turned into the alley and limped to the side door, all but leaning on the doorbell. He might have passed out for a moment, because the next thing was aware of, the solid wall supporting him turned into a door and opened away from him, and he tumbled over into somebody's arms.

There was a surprised exclamation above him, and he looked up to catch a flash of red. Red... red hair... Schuldig? "Schu..."

No... no that couldn't be right... this was where Weiss lived, not Schwartz. Schuldig wouldn't be here because... because he was...

"Nagi! Gods, what happened to you!?" A familiar voice exclaimed. "Aya-kun, bring him to the chair... gently..."

He turned his head to one side and saw worried blue eyes surrounded by a familiar face. "Omi..." he croaked, reaching out towards his friend. Omi was here, Omi would help him, he was safe, he could rest now...

The room faded and went black around him as he slid away into oblivion.

 

* * *

Aya grunted in surprise as the telekinetic went limp his arms, and set the boy down in the chair a little more gently than he'd actually intended to. It was hard not to be gentle, despite his all consuming hatred of Schwartz... the psychic looked like he'd been beaten to death, and dragged himself back out of hell only with a supreme effort of will. It had obviously taken everything he had to make it this far... the question was, why was he HERE?

"What the hell could do THAT to HIM?" Ken exclaimed, moving up beside Aya. The swordsman had to agree with his lover's assessment... Nagi was by far the most powerful member of Schwartz, and that was saying something. For him to be this badly injured... either he'd been caught by surprise, or run up against something stronger than he was. And that, in and of itself, was a frightening thought.

"Aya-kun, help him stay upright," Omi ordered unecessarily. The youngest Weiss knelt down and chafed his Schwartz counterpart's wrists to try to wake him. Aya gave the boy a quick visual examination while Omi worked, Ken and Youji hovering behind him.

Nagi's left eye was swollen shut, and the entire left side of his face looked like it had been slammed into something unyielding repeatedly. Dried blood trailed down from a cut at his hairline, staining his face a rusty brown colour. There was more dried blood on his uniform, indicating further injuries beneath the concealing clothes. Here and there spots of fresh crimson were soaking into the fabric, indicating that the telekinetic had started some of the wounds bleeding again recently.

"He looks like he was lying somewhere for a while... long enough for the blood to dry... then got up and walked here," Aya concluded aloud. Omi nodded, his face grim.

"Yeah, that's what it looks like. The question is, who did this... and why? And where are his teammates?"

"And why did he come HERE?" Ken added, mystified. Omi and Youji traded brief, obscure looks, and Aya narrowed his eyes. "He seemed like he was looking for you, Omi," Ken continued, oblivious to the quick interchange.

"He probably was," Omi admitted reluctantly. He was about to say more, but at that moment Nagi regained consciousness with a gasp, flailing out at Omi and Aya. Omi caught his hands again deftly, and Aya simply stepped to one side to avoid the blow, keeping his hands on the telekinetic's shoulders to help him stay upright. Without the help, it was very likely he'd have fallen off the chair, from what Aya could see.

"Nagi, it's okay!" Omi said hastily, holding tight to the boy's hands. "You're safe. You're okay. Wake up, please..."

"O-omi?" Nagi stuttered after a moment as his eyes finally focused on the room. "Oh gods... Omi..." he all but threw himself forward into Omi's arms, sobbing helplessly on the older youth's shoulder. Omi looked surprised, but held the smaller boy automatically, patting an unbloody spot on his back gently. Aya stood watching with Ken and Youji, eyes still narrowed as he watched the interplay between the two teens.

"Nagi, what happened? Where's Schuldig?" Omi asked when Nagi's sobs started to quiet.

"Th-they took him," Nagi whimpered, face still buried in Omi's shoulder. "They t-took him, and C-crawford... I think they k-killed Farfarello..."

"Who took him?" Youji broke in. "Nagi, who attacked you?"

Nagi turned to look up at him, dark blue eyes filled with tears that slowly spilled over onto his cheeks. They mixed with the flakes of dried blood already there, turning pink and making it look eerily like he was crying blood. "I don't know," he said, voice hoarse. "I didn't recognize them. I think Crawford did, but he didn't get a chance to say anything before they knocked him out."

"Why didn't Crawford see it coming?" Omi asked. "Why didn't you just blast them?"

The telekinetic shook his head miserably. "I couldn't. They were blocking me somehow... blocking all of us. They were psychics." He started to shake. "I woke up... and Farfarello was just lying there... and S-Schuldig and C-crawford were gone... I... I didn't know what to DO..."

Aya's eyebrows raised. This sounded nothing like the calm, confident young assassin he was used to seeing in battles. Nagi sounded like a small child... a small, distressed, injured child who was lost without an adult to guide him. Omi was rocking him now, still patting his back.

"It's okay, Nagi... you did the right thing," the leader of Weiss murmured softly, reassuringly. He glanced up at his teammates, looking nervous, but his tone of voice didn't change. "You made the right decision to come to us."

"I was s-so s-s-scared," the telekinetic sobbed, burying his face in Omi's shoulder again.

Omi held him soothingly, but his expression was grim as he looked up at the others. "Aya-kun, I want you and Youji to go out there and take a look around, see if you can find any sign of who these people were. Double-check to make sure Farfarello is actually dead... the last thing we need is him running around loose in the city. Ken-kun, you help me get Nagi upstairs to my room, and we'll see what we can do about his injuries."

"We're going to help them?" Ken blurted out, eyes wide. He looked down at the shivering boy in Omi's arms, and flushed. "I mean, yeah, we'll get him patched up and all. He was always the best of the bunch of them, I guess. But why are we going looking for clues?"

Omi shook his head. "For now, just operate on the assumption that anyone who could do THIS to Schwartz," he nodded at Nagi, "may be a danger to us as well. If this is a bunch of former Estet agents who've come to get revenge on the people who killed the leaders... they'll be looking for Weiss as well as Schwartz."

"That's... logical," Ken admitted, albeit reluctantly.

"I'm not buying it," Aya growled. "That doesn't explain why he came HERE for help... or why you two aren't surprised that he did," he added, including Youji in his glare. Youji just looked back at him with a level, shuttered gaze, but Omi sighed and shook his head.

"I'll explain everything AFTER we get this sorted out," the youngest Weiss said. "I promise. But right now we have more important things to do... the explanation can wait. Ken-kun, help me get him upstairs, please?"

"Yeah, sure," Ken agreed belatedly. He slid his arms around the telekinetic's shoulders. "You get his legs, okay?" he said as he started to lift. Omi nodded and supported the boy's lower body weight as they moved carefully towards the stairs. Aya watched them go, eyes still narrowed, trying to figure out just what piece he was missing to complete this puzzle.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Youji asked as the younger men made it through the door to the stairs. "If Farfarello isn't dead, every minute we stand around here is another minute to help him get away. Let's go."

 

* * *

They managed to get Nagi up the stairs without doing much more damage to him, though the boy did pass out on the way up. That was actually something of a blessing, since it meant they didn't have to listen to his tiny, pained whimpers any more. Those small sounds stabbed straight through to Ken's heart, making him feel guilty for not really wanting to help the youth. But hell, injured or not, teenager or not, the boy they were carrying was their ENEMY, and a very dangerous enemy at that. Ken couldn't help but think that it wouldn't have been a totally bad thing if Nagi had just died before making it to them. And that was a whole other issue... Aya was right, there was something more going on here. Why HAD Nagi come to them for help? Come to Omi, specifically?

"Explanations later," Omi said sternly as they laid the telekinetic down on the bed and Ken started to ask the questions preying on his mind. "Get his clothes off - cut them off if you have to. I'm going to get the first aid kit." His hand lingered gently on Nagi's for a moment, before he turned and left his bedroom. If Ken hadn't known better, he'd have said that gesture was an affectionate one - the touch of a worried friend... or lover.

The ex-soccer player shook his head, dismissing THAT thought before it could get any further. The idea that Omi was secretly friends with Nagi was stretching probability, but potentially believable. The idea that Omi was secretly sleeping with Nagi was simply beyond belief... after all, Omi was quite firmly attached to Youji, and Youji was rather possessive of his young lover.

He made one abortive attempt to get Nagi's clothes off the usual way, but realized quickly that it just wasn't going to work. He had no idea where Omi kept his knives or scissors... but hadn't he been wearing these pants today earlier in the shop? He checked his pockets, and found the folding knife he often carried with him at work. Snapping it open, he carefully cut through the tough fabric of the telekinetic's school uniform tunic, careful not to jostle the boy too badly.

Each piece of fabric that he peeled away revealed new injuries... and old scars. Ken's eyes got wider and wider as he worked. Nagi was literally covered in scars, and almost all of them were several years old. Some of them looked like he'd had them from early childhood - they had stretched out as the boy had grown. What on earth could have marked a young child like that? Repeatedly marked him? Had Nagi come from an abusive family of some kind? Hell, no wonder he seemed so uncaring of what happened to other people... probably figured the world had never done anything for him, so why should he do anything for the world.

Not that it excused his actions... just explained them. Ken shook his head and kept working. He slid the knife carefully under the tight collar and pulled upwards, and the tough fibres gave way beneath the sharp edge. He peeled the tunic collar away from Nagi's throat, and paused. Nagi was wearing a choker that had been hidden by the high neck of the tunic. A plain leather band with a small pendant attached. Ken frowned and leaned in for a closer look. He'd seen a collar like this once before... but where?

He reached out to unfasten it, figuring the boy would be able to breath easier without it around his throat. "Don't!" Omi exclaimed from behind him, making him jump. He looked around to see his friend in the doorway, carrying a basket full of the medical supplies they all kept handy. "Don't take it off," Omi continued as he entered the room and set the basket down beside the bed. "He'll be frantic if it's gone when he wakes up. The last thing we need now is for him to be more panicked than he already is."

Looking at Omi, the connection clicked in Ken's mind. "Omi, that's a bondage collar," he accused, gesturing at Nagi.

Omi nodded, not meeting his eyes as he moved to get Nagi's pants off. "Yes, it is," he agreed shortly. "Now either help me finish undressing him, or get out of my way, please."

Ken moved to help Omi get the bloody pants off, his body working on autopilot as his mind raced. Nagi was wearing a bondage collar. Nagi was a sub. Nagi was wearing a bondage collar with a pendant that looked an AWFUL lot like the one Omi had worn on that mission... though admittedly with all the fancy scrollwork, it was hard to tell. But weren't those things supposed to be easily recognizable? So didn't that mean all the scrollwork must mean they WERE the same? But that would imply...

Ken's mind shied away from that thought, and he let it for now. Questions later, he reminded himself grimly as Omi started taking inventory of Nagi's injuries. For now, they had a badly injured boy to try to help.

"His shoulder's dislocated," Omi noted, scanning the telekinetic. "Looks like his ankle might be broken as well. That bruising on the ribs looks nasty... I wouldn't be surprised if he's broken or cracked them. The cuts all look like the skin just broke open after being bashed against something, not as if he was slashed with something..." he paused and tilted his head. "You know, he looks an awful lot like *I* did after facing him, only worse. At a guess, I'd say a telekinetic did all this."

"Yeah, you're probably right," Ken agreed after looking at the injuries again. "Slammed him against something on his left side, repeatedly. Jesus. And they were able to BLOCK Schwartz somehow? This is starting to look seriously scary."

Nagi whimpered and stirred, his eyes slitting open. "Omi?" he croaked, reaching out. Omi caught his hand.

"I'm here, Liebe," he murmured softly. "It's okay. We're just treating your injuries, okay? I need you to lie still for me, but don't tense up."

Nagi nodded, and visibly relaxed every muscle in his body. Ken blinked, surprised... given the amount of pain the boy had to be in, he wouldn't have thought it would be possible for him to just voluntarily relax like that. Omi looked at his teammate. "Ken, can you get his arm back into place? You're better with dislocations than I am."

"Yeah, sure," Ken agreed, moving to grasp Nagi's arm in one hand and his shoulder in the other. "On the count of three, okay? One... two..."

He wrenched sharply at the telekinetic's arm, twisting it back into place with an audible crunch. Nagi cried out, and a sharp blow hit Ken in the chest, sending him tumbling off the bed and onto the floor, gasping for air. When he finally managed to draw breath again, he turned his head to see that Omi was lying beside him, likewise winded.

"Should... should have expected that," Omi finally wheezed, looking chagrined. "I didn't think he had the energy left, though."

"I'm sorry," Nagi sobbed from where he was now huddled on the bed. "I'm sorry... I didn't mean to... please don't be angry, I didn't mean to..."

"We're not angry," Ken said automatically, and then realized it was true. Hell, he'd taken worse shoves from people he was resetting dislocated joints on. But this utter wretched misery... Nagi seemed genuinely terrified that they would be angry with him for hitting them. "Calm down, kid, we're not going to hurt you."

Omi scrambled back up to his feet and perched on the edge of the bed, reaching out to hug Nagi carefully, mindful of his possibly broken ribs. "It's okay, Liebe, it's all right. You're safe, nobody is going to hurt you. Trust me, all right?"

Nagi nodded against Omi's shoulder, but didn't seem entire convinced. Ken got to his feet as well. 'Liebe'? he mouthed at Omi, but the younger Weiss just gave him a warning look and shook his head. Ken sighed and raked his hair back out of his eyes. The puzzle pieces were piling up, and he was really starting to dislike the picture they were showing.

With Omi holding the boy soothingly, Ken managed to tape up his ribs without too much further difficulty. His ankle turned out to be sprained, not broken, so he wrapped it tightly and applied a chemical cold pack to it. Nagi bore the pain stoically, never making a sound louder than a whimper, though his face was twisted with agony. Omi helped Ken clean out the cuts and abrasions, and they patched up the worst of them.

At last Ken stood back and surveyed their work. "Okay, I think he's good now. So long as he stays off that foot, the brace will hold his ankle until it heals a bit. How do you feel, kid?"

Nagi was still curled up against Omi, face tucked in the older boy's shoulder and clinging to his shirt like a lifeline. He shook his head slightly, but didn't say anything. Omi sighed. "Right. Well... there's nothing more we can do until Aya-kun and Youji get back, and you need rest more than anything, I think." He shifted slowly out from under Nagi, guiding the youth to lie back against the pillows. "Ken-kun, I've got some instant soup in my kitchen... could you go make some for him while I put the medical supplies away, please?"

"Sure," Ken agreed, heading for the door to the rest of Omi's apartment. When he reached it he glanced back once at the pale, slender form in Omi's bed; then he shook his head and kept moving. Omi was going to have a hell of a lot of questions to answer when this was over.

 

* * *

Youji insisted on taking his car, knowing that Aya became a rather reckless driver when he was angry. And there was absolutely no doubt that the redhead was furious, as he sat fuming in the passenger seat of Youji's car. Youji figured silence was the better part of valour in this case, and kept his mouth shut. With any luck, he'd be able to delay the final confrontation until they were back at the Koneko, and he could find out just how much Omi was planning to reveal.

"I don't suppose you'd like to tell me how you know where you're going," Aya said coldly after Youji made another turn without hesitating. Youji's eyes widened, and he cursed silently.

"Uh, no, not really," Youji muttered. He glanced over and caught a glimpse of violet eyes darkened with rage, and sighed. "Look, like Omi said, explanations can wait until later. We've got a job to do, let's focus on that for now, all right?"

As he'd hoped, appealing to Aya's sense of duty helped to stave off the questions for a little while longer. But Youji knew very well it was only a temporary stop-gap; once the swordsman latched onto something that irritated him, he never let go until he'd solved the mystery by any means necessary.

He pulled into the underground lot of the condominium building that Schuldig and Nagi lived in. He had no idea if the fight - or whatever it was - had happened here; given that Crawford and Farfarello had also been involved, it might very well have occurred at Crawford's apartment. But Youji didn't know where the precognitive lived, and he also didn't have a key to the door. Given Nagi's abilities with electronics, he didn't fancy trying to break into any place any member of Schwartz spent a significant amount of time in.

He got out of the car, then looked over at Aya. "Listen... if Farfarello did live through that attack, he's probably healed himself by now. If you're more focused on being irritated with me than on watching my back, you can stay HERE instead of risking both our lives. Understand?"

Aya stared at him, but nodded slowly after a moment. "I'm coming with you," he said shortly, picking up his katana and fixing the sheath to his belt. "But I want answers after this is over, and they'd better be damn GOOD answers."

Pulling out a length of his wire to test the release, Youji nodded. "You'll get your explanation, once we're all in one place again. For one thing, it's not really my place to tell you anything." He let the wire snap back with a satisfying whir, and headed for the elevator.

There was no question that Schwartz made a hell of a lot more money than Weiss ever had. Even the elevator was posh, and required a keycard to be inserted into a slot before any level but the lobby could be activated. Youji fished his card out of his pocket and slid it into place, then hit the button. The elevator moved so smoothly he was hardly even aware of the ascent.

Aya's brows had drawn together in a scowl again when he saw the keycard, but he kept his mouth shut and his eyes focused on the door. After a moment the scowl changed to a frown. "Look... there's blood on the doors," he said, stepping closer. Youji leaned in as well.

"Yeah, looks like it," he agreed. He glanced down, but the bright red of the plush carpet made it hard to spot any more blood there. "If that's Nagi's, then we're at the right place." The elevator dinged discreetly, and the doors slid open to reveal a hallway decorated in the same luxurious style as the elevator.

There was more blood on the walls, staining the gold and cream wallpaper a rusty brown colour. Youji frowned as he saw at least one clear handprint, too small to belong to an adult. "That's Nagi, all right... he must have been holding himself up by leaning on the wall." He followed the trail back to the right door, not that he needed the indicator. The door was ajar, showing an inch or two of the vestibule.

"I'll go first," Aya murmured, barely loud enough to be heard. Youji nodded - his was a long range weapon, and it made sense for the more effective close quarters fighter to go in first. Of course, Aya was going to be hampered by the narrow hallway - there wasn't room to swing his katana properly. Youji readied his wire, in case Farfarello was waiting to ambush them.

The moment they stepped inside, the smell of blood hit them full in the face. Youji breathed shallowly through his mouth as he had learned to do - Weiss often faced this after killing their targets, though he had only occasionally walked in on someone else's mess. It was much worse when it was slightly stale, he discovered.

The hallway branched not far past the door. Youji caught Aya's eye, and motioned to the right. 'Bedrooms', he mouthed, and then 'living room' while pointing to the left. Aya's eyes narrowed again, but he just nodded and jerked his head to the left, indicating that he would take that direction.

They split up, and Youji made his way down the hall on catfeet. The bathroom door was open, and a quick glance inside revealed nothing out of place. There was no blood on the walls here, and it wasn't likely that Schuldig would have been entertaining Crawford and Farfarello in the bedroom, so he wasn't likely to find any bodies in this direction. But if Farfarello hadn't been dead and had recovered, and was waiting for them, it would make sense for the Irishman to hide in the bedroom and then attack them from behind when they went into the living room to investigate.

And, frankly, he'd rather Aya didn't get a look at the bedroom and its... accoutrements. That would just raise far too many questions he wasn't sure he wanted to answer, now or ever. Admitting to fraternizing with the enemy would be bad enough... Aya and Ken really didn't need to know all the gory details.

"Youji!" Aya called, just as Youji opened the bedroom door and glanced inside. "I found him."

Youji did a quick check of the bedroom just in case, but there was nothing out of place here, either. He shut the door again and jogged back down the hall to the living room.

The smell of blood got stronger as he headed towards the living room. He stopped in the doorway and looked around. The carpets in here were a light beige colour, so the puddle of mostly dried blood by one wall stood out clearly. There were bloody indents in the wall just above it - presumably where Nagi had been slammed into the wall, then left lying in his own blood. The furniture was all tipped over, and Farfarello's knife was lying in another, smaller puddle of blood near the door Youji was standing in. The Irishman himself was sprawled out over the floor, his body partially concealed by the overturned couch. Aya was kneeling next to him, checking his vital signs.

"Is he actually dead?" Youji asked, moving forward. He couldn't see a visible wound on the psychic, even when he rounded the couch and could see the man's entire body.

Aya looked up and nodded. "He's dead. No heartbeat, no respiration... I've been checking for the last five minutes, just to be sure. It wouldn't surprise me if he could slow his heartbeat and breathing enough to fool someone into thinking he was dead."

Youji nodded and knelt on Farfarello's other side. "No offense," he said as he leaned forward and checked for himself. "Not that I don't trust you or something... I just won't be able to shake the feeling that he's about to leap up and slice us to ribbons until I see for myself."

Aya raised an eyebrow, but nodded. "I have to say, I'm not quite willing to turn my back on him, either."

There was indeed no sign of life in the man's body. His single golden eye was wide open, and a trail of blood had welled up from it and trickled down over his cheek. More blood trails led from his nose, mouth, and ears, but other than that there was no sign of injury. "What the hell killed him?" Youji wanted to know. "It looks like he was... pressurized, or something. Or his brain exploded."

"Maybe it did," Aya replied grimly. "If we're dealing with psychics, there's no telling what they're capable of. I'd believe that Schuldig or Nagi would be capable of something like this."

Youji shuddered. Despite himself, he reached out to close Farfarello's eye - more to escape that golden stare than out of any form of respect. "Yeah, probably," he agreed. "Well... that's one burden off our backs, anyway. Let's start looking for any sign of who the hell did this."

He stood and surveyed the room again, and shook his head. "I have a nasty feeling we haven't seen the last of these people."


	2. Chapter 2

Brad awoke with a vague sense of unease, and what was possibly the worst reaction migraine of his life. Keeping his eyes tightly closed, he groped to the side where his nightable should be. He'd learned from experience to keep some VERY strong painkillers handy - sometimes when a particularly vivid vision hit him in the night, he awoke with a blinding headache. This one was the strongest he'd ever had, though... and oddly, he couldn't remember the vision for the life of him. He couldn't seem to find the nightstand, either. He was just debating risking a mental call for help to Schuldig when his groping hand encountered something cold and metal.

At about that point he realized that the surface he was lying on didn't resemble his soft feather mattress in the least. He'd slept in plenty of strange beds over the years, but this felt like a concrete floor. He was rather fussy about his bedding, and he couldn't remember taking a job that would have required him to sleep on a floor of any kind, much less a concrete one.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, he forced his eyes open, shielding them from the harsh lightsource as best he could with his hand. The room swam before him, refusing to come into focus, and he finally realized that he wasn't wearing his glasses. Squinting, he forced his vision to focus, and froze when he realized what he was looking at.

Dark bars slashed across his view, cutting the light sharply. He was indeed lying on a concrete floor, in what amounted to a very small cell. It looked like a prison cell of some kind... there was an empty bunk bed behind him and a small sink and toilet to one side, and those were definitely iron bars across the front of the room. Still reeling from pain, he sat up slowly and strained to see outside his cell.

More iron bars, lined up in rows upon rows... definitely some kind of prison. It was quiet though, much too quiet to be a working prison. He held his breath and listened carefully, and thought he could make out tiny whimpers of pain. There was someone else in here with him...

"Who's there?" he called out, his voice hoarse with pain. The whimpers stopped, and he heard rustling and a groan.

"Crawford? Is that you?" Schuldig's unmistakeable nasal voice came back. He sounded more than a little panicked. "I can't Hear you!"

It took Brad a moment to realize that the telepath meant he couldn't hear him mentally, rather than physically. The moment he realized that, he checked his powers to see what the immediate future held - and, as he'd feared, came up with nothing at all. "Something is blocking us," he said aloud, grimacing. "I can't See anything either. Do you remember what happened?"

"I... yeah, kinda..." Schuldig replied slowly. His voice was coming directly from the left, so he must have been in the next cell over. "We were having a meeting, you and Farf came over... uh... I think we ordered out for food, and then when the buzzer rang, Nagi went to get it. Everything is kind of fuzzy after that..."

His voice changed abruptly. "Oh, Gott. Nagi? Liebe, are you here? Answer me, Liebe..."

They both remained silent for a long moment, waiting for the reply. There was nothing, only the sound of their own breathing. "He might still be unconscious," Brad finally offered, knowing Schuldig was probably thinking the worst. The telepath had never been mentally separated from his sub since the first day they'd met - they both relied on the contact far more than either was consciously aware of. "Or he might even have gotten away. Nagi is stronger than most people give him credit for - including us."

"Yeah... yeah, you're probably right," Schuldig said, but he didn't sound like he was sure he agreed. "If he got away, and can't find me, hopefully he'll home in on the nearest people he trusts - Omi and Youji. Weiss will protect him, even if it does end up blowing Omi's secret."

Unfortunately, as Brad knew very well, Nagi was all but helpless without direction from his Master, especially when he was in a very stressful situation. Assuming the telekinetic had survived at all - which he was beginning to doubt as more of his memories of the fight returned to him - Nagi was far more likely to simply huddle in a corner until the police discovered him, rather than take the initiative enough to go looking for Weiss.

He leaned against the wall between him and Schuldig, and tried to marshal his thoughts into some form of order. He remembered the meeting. They had been meeting because... because...

Because his powers hadn't been functioning correctly recently. He'd been experiencing grey spots and a general lack of clarity when using his powers, and he'd wanted to see if the others were having similar problems. He remembered Nagi going to open the door, and being picked up and flung backwards by an invisible force. He remembered his shields going down... small wonder he was so confused, if he'd lost all of his shielding all at once. He remembered Schuldig screaming, probably as his shields were torn down as well. After that...

After that... vague, hazy memories of Nagi being beaten bloody... of Farfarello charging the door, throwing his knife, and then stopping dead in his tracks... and a face, several faces that he recognized from the distant past...

"Was it Estet?" Schuldig asked, interupting his thought process. "You think they're trying for revenge because we killed the Elders?"

"No," Brad whispered, feeling sick to his stomach with the realization. "No, it's something much worse than that. It's the Institute... they've tracked us down."

 

* * *

Omi stowed the last of the medical supplies back under his bathroom sink where they belonged. Over the years they'd all learned to keep such things handy, and to treat their own wounds, up to a point. Kritiker frowned on them going to doctors for anything but emergencies, as it meant a lot of trouble covering up the paper trail and making sure nobody questioned where the injuries had come from.

Nagi was in bad shape, but he would make it. He was young and resilient, and frankly, he'd lived through worse already. Omi knew the stories behind most of his friend's scars, and none of them were anything but gruesome and horrifying. Omi was far more worried about his mental state. Nagi had improved greatly from his early days as a pet, but he still relied on Schuldig for most of his stability. Worse yet, it was entirely possible - seemed likely, given his behaviour - that he'd regressed, losing a lot of that progress, in the face of this overwhelming stress.

Omi had tried repeatedly to contact his former Master via telepathy, but Schuldig either wasn't listening or wasn't answering. It was possible that he was simply out of range... his range was unbelievable, but it wasn't infinite. But one way or another, he was out of contact. Omi knew Nagi's bond with the German went much deeper and was much stronger than his own, so he could only hope that the telekinetic would still be able to reach the telepath. If not... they had bigger problems on their hands.

He made his way back to his bedroom, and walked right into a wave of tension. He paused in the doorway, and took in the scene. Ken was perched on the edge of the bed, an angry expression on his face, holding a mug of ramen. Nagi was curled up in the corner, as far as he could get from Ken without moving off the bed, knees tucked up against his chest and his arms wrapped around him. "What happened?" Omi asked, keeping his voice soft and steady to avoid startling Nagi.

"He won't eat it," Ken said, gesturing angrily with his free hand. Nagi flinched away from the gesture, huddling further into the wall and burying his face in his knees. His shoulders were shaking - from silent sobs or from fear, Omi wasn't sure.

He padded over to the bed and settled on the edge, reaching out to touch Nagi's hand gently. His heart sank when the telekinetic flinched away again, unwilling to sustain even that small contact. "Liebe," he said softly. "Liebchen, look at me."

Even though he was a submissive himself, he was still a leader in his everyday life, and that had given him the ability to imbue his voice with quiet authority. As he'd hoped, Nagi responded to that authority, looking up at him with redrimmed eyes. "Liebe, tell me why you won't eat," Omi said, remembering to make it an order and not a question at the last moment.

Nagi tried twice to speak before he could force anything out. "I tried," he whispered, hardly loud enough to be heard. "I tried, I DID... I c-can't. Gebieter... d-didn't say... I could..."

Omi bit his lip to keep from groaning out loud. Nagi had regressed more than he'd even feared - he hadn't needed explicit permission from Schuldig to eat since LONG before Omi had come into his life. Frantic, he wracked his brain. Obviously the psychic wasn't in mental contact with his Master, or the problem wouldn't have come up. That meant they had to find another way around it. Nagi would sometimes respond to orders from another Dom if they didn't conflict with Schuldig's orders... but the nearest Dom Omi knew of was Youji, and he might not be back for hours. Nagi needed the warmth and sustenance NOW, not later.

Suddenly he was struck by inspiration. "Liebe, remember the day we went to the park?" he said, and Nagi nodded slowly. "Gebieter told you to obey my orders, in case we ran into trouble without him. Remember? Did he ever rescind that order?"

Omi could feel Ken's eyes burning holes into him as he waited anxiously for Nagi's response. There was absolutely no way he was going to get out of telling the entire story now... but if it meant Nagi would eat, he'd spill his secrets and do it gratefully.

"N-no," the younger boy finally murmured. Omi kept his sigh of relief silent.

"Good. Then, I'm ordering you to eat," Omi said immediately. Nagi reached out and took the cup from Ken and lifted it to his lips, drinking obediently. "Good!" Omi said, pleased and thankful. "Very good, Liebchen. Gebieter would be proud of you."

When he'd drained the cup, Nagi lowered it and looked back at him uncertainly. Smiling to encourage him, Omi reached out and took the mug from him, handing it to Ken, who was watching everything with narrowed eyes. Ignoring his best friend for the moment, Omi gestured for Nagi to lie down, then tucked the smaller boy into the covers. "Now, I want you to rest. Try to sleep if you can, but if you can't, just rest here," he ordered. "I will be right outside in the other room. If you need something or have any trouble, I want you to come and get me, do you understand?" Nagi nodded. "Good. Now, rest, Liebe." Omi leaned over and kissed the telekinetic gently on the forehead. "It'll be okay," he whispered in the boy's ear. "We'll get him back for you, I _swear_ it."

Standing, he gestured to the door and waited until Ken had left. Nagi had already obediently closed his eyes and evened out his breathing, just as Omi had hoped he would. One advantage of Nagi's pathological need to follow orders was that you COULD get him to rest, even when he was too stressed to want to. He turned out the lights and shut the door, leaving it open a crack so he'd hopefully be able to hear it if Nagi had a nightmare.

He entered the living room, and nearly flinched at the look on Ken's face. His best friend was looking at him as if he'd suddenly turned into something both horrifying and fascinating all at once. "Wait until Aya-kun gets back," Omi said, hoping to head his friend off at the pass. "Please? I only want to go through this once."

Ken gave him a hard look. "I'm not sure I really need you to tell me anything at this point," he said, voice low and dangerous. "Your Master, the one you had before Youji... Nagi belongs to him, too, doesn't he?" Omi sighed and nodded, giving in to the inevitable. "Who is it? Crawford?"

"Schuldig," Omi replied, sprawling down across one of the chairs. Ken took the other, still watching him closely. "It's a very long, complicated story. I promise I WILL tell you everything when the others get back."

"Schuldig?" Ken repeated, and understanding dawned on his face. "He screwed with your head, didn't he? THAT'S why..."

"That's NOT why," Omi cut in. He'd been afraid Ken would come to this conclusion... it was, after all, the logical conclusion to come to. "He didn't do anything to my mind. And yes," he cut off the next objection before Ken could say it, "I know that of course I'd say that if he HAD done it. You're just going to have to trust me on this, Ken-kun... trust me, and trust Youji."

"I just... don't believe this is happening," Ken said, shaking his head. "I mean... it was weird when I found out you were a sub, but I adjusted. But THIS... Omi, how could you? They're our enemies!"

"And I love them," Omi responded quietly. That shut Ken up in mid-rant, the older man's jaw hanging open as he stared at the youngest Weiss. "They saved me, they protected me, and they gave me hope. I'd have been lost without them. Youji is the be-all and end-all of my world... but I will never stop loving Schuldig and Nagi for what they did for me."

Ken visibly groped for something to say in response to that, apparently in vain. Finally he just sat back and shut his mouth. "This is insane," he muttered, covering his eyes with one arm. "I'm having a nightmare, that's all. WAY too much pizza before I went to bed."

Omi's mouth twitched, but he was far too wound up to actually laugh. If Ken's reaction was bad, he knew Aya's was going to be horrid. Of all of them, the redhead was still carrying the biggest grudge against Schwartz, and Omi really couldn't blame him.

They sat in silence for a good half hour before they heard the sound of Youji's car coming up the alley behind the shop. Omi went over and opened the window, leaning out. "Youji!" he called, and his lover looked up. "Come up here when you get in - Aya-kun too. I told Nagi I'd be here if he needed anything, so I don't want to leave."

He ducked back inside before they could do anything more than nod their assent. The cold, set look on Aya's face did not bode well for his reaction. Omi hadn't seen the swordsman THAT angry since Estet had fallen and he'd gotten his sister back. He wondered how much Youji had been forced into revealing already.

Moments later the front door opened, and Youji and Aya entered, still dressed in their mission clothes. They both kicked their boots off at the door, and Omi noted flakes of brown on the soles. "I take it you found where the fight took place?"

Youji nodded, coming in and slinging himself down on the sofa. Omi joined him, leaving the extra chair for Aya rather than having Aya and Youji sitting together. Not only did he want to avoid the potential problems that seating arrangement might incur, but he desperately wanted to feel Youji's solid warmth at his side while he told this story. This was not going to be easy for him.

"We found it, all right. Schu's place. The livingroom looked like a battlezone. Farfarello is dead," Youji added, and Omi and Ken both sighed in relief.

"You're SURE?" Ken asked, anxious. "I mean... he's come back from the 'dead' before..."

"He's dead," Aya confirmed. "We're not sure what killed him... there wasn't a mark on him, but he was bleeding from the mouth, nose, eyes and ears. No heartbeat, no respiration, and we checked for a good fifteen minutes straight."

"Thank God," Ken said, relaxing slightly in his chair. "That would have been just one thing too many to worry about."

"Did you find any sign of Schuldig or Crawford?" Omi asked. "Or the people who took them?"

"Before we go any further," Aya cut in, glaring at him, "I think Ken and I deserve that explanation you promised. I for one want to know why the HELL Youji has a key to Schuldig's apartment." Ken stared at Youji in surprise.

Omi drew a deep breath, and felt Youji squeeze his shoulder. He cast a grateful glance at his lover, and began the painful story. "You all know by know that I'm a submissive, and have been for some time. Ken-kun now knows, and I'm sure you've started to guess, Aya-kun... that my Master was Schuldig."

Aya's eyes narrowed, but he didn't react otherwise. Omi wasn't sure whether he was grateful that the redhead wasn't going to interrupt every three seconds, or worried that Aya was storing up everything to blast him with at the end.

"When I first got involved in the scene, I was... in a really, really bad place mentally and emotionally," Omi said, lowering his eyes to stare at the carpet. He just couldn't bring himself to look at his teammates. "I'd... had a lot of things wearing away at me. Remembering my past, discovering who I really was, losing Ouka, turning against Hirofumi... It all ate at my sense of SELF, at my knowledge of who and what I was inside. Then..."

He glanced at Youji, who just smiled at him sadly. "Then I had a fight with Youji," he continued after a moment. "I offered myself to him... asked him to be my first... and..."

"And I turned him down in just about the worst way possible," Youji finished when Omi was clearly having trouble. "Told him I didn't want anything to do with him, that he wasn't worth my time, essentially. Biggest damn mistake I ever made, and I've regretted it every day since."

Something clicked for Ken. "That was... when you were drinking all the time, wasn't it?" he asked, looking at Youji. The older man nodded, and pulled Omi a little closer to him.

"It destroyed me," Omi picked up the thread of the story, having composed himself a little. His voice shook slightly and his hands were trembling, but he knew he just had to get it out and get it over with. "I was already fragile, and it broke me almost past mending. I became convinced that I was worthless... that no one would ever really want me."

He took another deep breath. "So I did something monumentally stupid. I went online, found a BDSM club that would let people in without interviewing them first, and went. Alone, and without any weapons."

Ken looked horrified, and even Aya made a bit-off sound of shock. Omi nodded. "I'm sure you can guess what happened. The only clubs that let people in without checking them out first are the ones who don't care what kind of person is there. The only thing the Doms there were interested in was hurting their subs to gain power over them, to make themselves feel stronger and more important." His voice dropped to a whisper. "But I... didn't think I deserved anything better."

"How could you think that?" Ken burst out, obviously unable to stay silent any more. "Omi, how could you ever think that? Why didn't you come to me, if you were hurting so much?" He sounded hurt. "Aren't we best friends?"

Omi gave him a watery smile. "You know how bad I am about letting other people see that I'm upset. I didn't want to burden any of you with my problems... I figured you all had enough of your own. And by the time it got really bad, I was so convinced I didn't _deserve_ help, that I couldn't bring myself to ask for it."

Once again, Ken was left speechless. Omi steeled himself and continued. "I was incredibly lucky that night. I was rescued before they did much more than scare the hell out of me. Schuldig claimed me so that nobody else would be able to touch me, and then he got me the hell out of there." He raised a hand to touch his throat, where the German's pendant had hung for so long. It wasn't there now, of course... his collar was safely tucked away in a drawer in his bedroom, but the gesture had become habitual. None of his teammates missed the movement, but nobody said anything.

"He lectured me for being stupid enough to get into the situation in the first place," Omi continued. "Then when he realized how bad I was... that I had every intention of coming back the moment his back was turned..." He closed his eyes. "He told me that if I was going to go, I had to go with HIM, because otherwise he'd lose status and would have to fight to protect Nagi from people who thought Schuldig had gotten weak." He looked up at them again. "He never harmed me. He worked HARD to convince me that I was worth something again... and then he went out of his way to help me fix things with Youji. And THEN he helped us with that mission - without him and Nagi, I'd probably have died then."

"Whoah, hang on," Ken interjected, frowning. "Omi, you hated Schuldig worse than any of us. And then suddenly you were willing to put your life in his hands, just because he rescued you once? And it really doesn't seem to you like his powers just MIGHT have had something to do with that decision?"

Youji shrugged. "You have no reason to believe us, of course... but if there's one thing I've come to respect about Schuldig, it's that he doesn't fuck around when it comes to sex. For one thing, as Omi pointed out to me when I first found out about all this, he's a touch-based telepath. If he's touching you skin to skin, then he feels EXACTLY what you are feeling, just as if it was happening to him. So rape in any form really just isn't an option for him."

"And he couldn't just make me think that I liked it," Omi headed off the next obvious objection. "Not without a hell of a lot of effort, time, and prolonged continuous contact with me. I was never with him for more than 24 hours at one stretch, and that's not even close to long enough to rearrange something that deepseated."

"None of this can be proved, one way or another," Aya growled, unconvinced. "You might both be under his control, you might not be. If you are, we need to put a stop to it. If you're not... then you've betrayed us knowingly and willingly."

It was four in the morning, and Omi had just had an incredibly stressful night. He did something he rarely did - he lost his temper. "Listen to me, and pay close attention," he snapped. "I'm not asking you to like or forgive Schwartz. But don't you DARE accuse either Youji or me of betraying Weiss in any way. If anything, we've given them good reason NOT to kill us all off as an annoyance. Because that's all we ever were to them... annoyances, and pawns," Omi asserted. "Nagi alone could have killed all four of us with nothing more than a moment's thought."

"And the fact that someone or something took them down... someone that might very well be coming after US next... really ought to be our only real concern here, guys," Youji added. "We've also got an injured, incredibly dangerous kid under our roof, who is going to go seriously unstable if we don't find Schuldig soon. You can decide to try to kill us both as traitors later... right now we have work to do."

Ken sighed. "Yeah, fair enough. This is just... a lot to take in, guys. I mean, Christ."

"Don't think this will be the end of it," Aya warned them. "I have no intention of dropping this issue for longer than it takes us to track down what happened to Schuldig and Crawford."

"Fine," Omi said, weary beyond belief. Telling that story had been draining and painful, and right now all he really wanted to do was go curl up somewhere safe and quiet - preferably with Youji to hold him. Having Schuldig and Nagi there as well would have been a bonus. But Youji was right... they had work to do. "We'll argue about it later. For now, tell me what you've got."


	3. Chapter 3

Schuldig wasn't sure how much time had passed. There was no source of light except the harsh neon lights in the ceiling outside the cells. Normally if he couldn't get hold of a clock and wanted to know what time it was, he just peeked in a couple of minds until he found someone who knew. The minutes seemed to drag, until he was convinced several days had passed since he'd woken up. He knew it hadn't been more than a couple of hours, though... he was only starting to get hungry, and he'd only had to piss once.

He couldn't help probing at his telepathy, like a kid poking at a loose tooth. He couldn't remember anything ever being so quiet; there was nothing in his mind but his own thoughts. He'd wished for just this feeling so many times he'd lost count over the years; now that he had it at last, he found he desperately wanted his powers back. The feeling of being completely alone in the world was overwhelming - it was hard to convince himself that anyone else was actually out there, even when Crawford was speaking to him from the other cell.

"Am I imagining you?" he asked Crawford idly, tired of staring at the walls and picking at the blank spot in his own mind.

"I beg your pardon?" Crawford responded after a moment. He sounded startled, and Schuldig smirked. That wasn't a sound he got to hear in the precognitive's voice very often. Then he remembered WHY he'd been able to startle the other psychic, and his smirk faded.

"I asked if I was imagining you," he repeated. "I can't see you. I can't feel your mind. Maybe I'm really the only person left in the world, and I'm just imagining you to keep myself company."

"Schuldig," Crawford's voice held a warning note. "I know you're just trying to amuse yourself, but I want you to stay away from thoughts like that. You and I are both very powerful, and we're used to having our abilities as a constant presence. It will be far too easy for us to start to lose our grip on reality without them."

"Yeah, yeah," Schuldig brushed it off, but he found that he was actually scared of the thought. "Do you... d'you think we've lost them for good? Gone totally headblind?" The mere idea was terrifying... spend the rest of his life alone like this? Unable to truly touch another human being ever again? How the hell did normal people live like this, anyway?

"I don't know," Crawford replied after a moment. There was something in his voice that Schuldig had never heard before - fear. The precognitive was afraid, and THAT scared Schuldig more than anything else ever had in his life. Crawford was always the unflappable one, the one that could be counted on to remain calm no matter what happened. For the first time Schuldig tore his mind away from his own inability to sense anything beyond himself, and considered what this situation must be like for Crawford. Schuldig felt like he'd gone deaf... Crawford probably felt like he'd gone deaf AND blind all at once.

"We'll get out of this," Schuldig said suddenly, fiercely. He imbued his voice with every bit of conviction that he could muster. "When has Schwartz ever faced something we couldn't overcome? We beat the Elders at their own damn game. Nagi is out there somewhere, and when he finds us, there won't be enough of this building left intact to shelter a flea."

He refused to consider the idea that Nagi might be dead. It just... wasn't possible, and he flatly refused to think about it. The thought of life without his Liebchen was unbearable.

In the next cell, Crawford sighed and shifted. "It's entirely likely that we are only being blocked, not that we've lost our powers completely. The Institute does have people capable of burning out a psychic's powers... but I've never heard of it being done without also destroying the victim's mind, and we seem to be perfectly intact other than the loss of our abilities."

"Who are these guys, anyway?" Schuldig wanted to know. "You sure seem to know a lot about them."

There was a long pause, and he almost thought Crawford wasn't going to answer him. At last the American spoke, obviously choosing his words carefully. "The Institute is an organization not entirely unlike Estet. They have been gathering and training psychics for decades, perhaps centuries. Unlike Estet, they employed ONLY psychics, and so it was necessarily a smaller organization."

"So if they're collecting psychics, why take us and not Nagi or Farfarello?" Schuldig wanted to know. "I'd think Nagi would be MORE appealing to them... he's young enough that they'd have more luck conditioning him."

"They're not recruiting us, Schuldig," Crawford replied quietly. "They're hunting us down. I was trained by the Institute, and I was a field agent for them before Estet approached me to join them. If not for Estet's systematic decimation of the Institute's agents, I never would have been able to escape them. Rogue agents were extremely rare due to the level of brainwashing they employ... and they are always hunted down quickly and destroyed."

"But you escaped them... and STAYED away... that must have pissed them off pretty badly," Schuldig agreed slowly. There was something deep in his mind that was telling him he REALLY didn't want to persue this train of thought... but damn it, he had a right to know. "That explains why they took you. Why'd they take me?"

"Did you really think I would ever truly let you go?" a new voice echoed from down the hall. Schuldig whirled, straining to be able to look past the iron bars and see who was speaking. The voice was deep and oddly familiar - it started a sick feeling of dread building in the pit of his stomach.

Footsteps echoed through the hall as the unknown man approached. No, two sets of footsteps, Schuldig realized... one light and quick, and one heavy and slow. An adult and a child?

"Who the fuck are you?" the German demanded, cursing the loss of his powers. Give him FIVE minutes with his powers and this fucker, and he and Crawford would have been out of here in no time.

The man came into sight, smiling nastily at Schuldig through the bars as he paused in front of the cell. Behind him was a slender youth of no more than twelve, who had a vacant expression and unfocused eyes. The man was swarthy and dark - Mediterranean background, Schuldig thought. Italian, or maybe Greek.

"It's so good to see you again," the man rumbled, a lustful light in his eyes as he stared at Schuldig. That look made the telepath shiver, and he had to fight not to rub at his arms in a defensive gesture. "My most prized student. The years have been kind to you... you are even more beautiful now than you were as a teenager." He looked at Schuldig admiringly. "Perhaps we are wrong to insist on such military hair cuts among our students... that style suits you perfectly."

"Who. The FUCK. Are. You?" Schuldig bit out again, standing so that the man wasn't towering over him. Sitting before him made the German feel like a child being punished by a stern authority figure, and he didn't like the sensation at all. The only authority he recognized was Crawford, and that only because the precognitive had EARNED it.

Their captor looked surprised. "Don't tell me you don't remember me," he said. "I refuse to believe you have erased my mark on you so easily. No, I think you are bluffing."

"He's not bluffing - Emmanuel, isn't it?" Crawford said from the next cell. Schuldig could tell by the sound of his voice that he'd stood, as well. "He doesn't remember you. He doesn't remember anything about the Institute. He is not the person you think you know."

A massive headache was building behind Schuldig's eyes, and he struggled to fight it off. There was something... that he'd forgotten, and it was very important, but damn it, he didn't WANT to remember... Crawford's words reminded him of what had happened between them the day they'd met. Crawford had known him, had called him by another name, had been surprised that Schuldig hadn't recognized him. Schuldig had never wanted to know what it was the Crawford knew about him. He'd never asked, and the precognitive had never told, and eventually the telepath had all but forgotten that Crawford had known him from before he'd lost his memory. And now... this man also apparently knew him from his youth.

"You are not serious." Emmanuel made it a statement, rather than a question. He glanced over at Crawford's cell, and frowned. "You are telling the truth... or believe you are." He looked back at Schuldig, and suddenly the German was reeling back from the vice-grip on his brain. The man was a telepath, a strong one... and obviously whatever was blocking Crawford and Schuldig wasn't affecting him. Without his shields, Schuldig was helpless before the invasion, red hot knives raking across his mind and picking out bits of information.

"Amnesia," the other telepath said at last, as the crushing pressure faded and Schuldig fell to his knees, gasping for air. "Amazing. I would not have thought it possible. He truly does not remember anything. Do you know what caused it?"

His tone was nothing but polite inquiry, but there was a veiled threat in his eyes as he looked at Crawford once more. Schuldig wasn't capable of doing anything more than trying to collect his scattered brain cells, so he stayed silent and just listened.

"Some form of trauma... a memory his mind is hiding from," Crawford replied reluctantly. "I could have forced him to remember, but every time I thought about it I got visions of him, me, or both of us dying."

"Fascinating," Emmanuel said. Schuldig had finally gotten his breath back, and he raised his head to snarl at the older telepath. "So he didn't knowingly betray us... perhaps I will be able to convince the council to reinstate him."

"If you think I'm gonna do anything for you other than slit your throat, you've got another think coming," Schuldig growled, eyes narrowed. He staggered up to his feet again. "I don't care who you are, or who *I* was... I'm not going to just roll over and beg like a puppy dog. You can bite my ass, frankly."

The other man seemed unfazed by his acid comments. "I must say I do not prefer this personality to your old one. I shall simply have to see about fixing that."

"Weren't you listening?" Crawford snapped, and Schuldig heard him move to the front of the cell. "If you force his mind to remember whatever it is that he's running from, he will lose control and kill everything in the vicinity."

A sharp stabbing pain spiked into Schuldig's mind, and for a moment he thought it was Emmanuel again. Then he realized it was just the same headache he always got on the rare occasions when he tried to remember anything from his past. But he hadn't been trying to remember anything... was it this man's presence that was causing memories to try to surface? Or Crawford's words?

He took a deep breath and held it for a moment, willing the pain to subside. When he released it, he looked up to see Emmanual looking back at him once more.

"If I cannot force his mind to remember, then I shall simply have to work around it," the older telepath said, shrugging. His eyes narrowed in concentration, and suddenly the only thing Schuldig was aware of was the agonizing fire in his brain. It was like a wash of acid against raw nerve ends, eating away at his mind, at his memories.

He screamed, falling to the floor and clutching his head, and he didn't stop screaming for a very long time.

 

* * *

In the end, Omi reflected, it was just another mission. The people who had taken Crawford and Schuldig were much better at hiding their tracks than most of the targets Weiss took on, but they weren't perfect.

The attackers had disable the building's security systems, including the cameras, before showing up at Schuldig's apartment. However, they apparently hadn't been aware of the secondary, MUCH more sophisticated security system that Nagi had set up around the apartment. Youji had retrieved the computer hard drive the security system was hooked up to, and brought it back for Omi and Nagi to sift through.

When Nagi had - with much stuttering and hesitation - asked to help in the efforts to find his Master, Omi hadn't been about to turn him down, despite his conviction that the telekinetic wasn't up to much. The fact that the telekinetic had asked for anything at all, no matter how desperately he wanted it, was a good sign. He'd wound up compromising by letting Nagi sit propped up on pillows in the bed with a laptop, while Omi worked at the desk computer. It had ended up working better than he'd feared... thanks to his powers, Nagi could type without having to move his injured shoulder or strain his ribs.

With a sigh, Omi leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms out behind him. "I've found a couple of shots of your attackers, but nothing clear," he told the telekinetic. "Almost always from behind, too, as if they knew where the cameras were."

Nagi shook his head, not looking up from his own work. "If they'd known about the cameras, they'd have disabled them, too. They knew where cameras WOULD logically be, if there was another security system, and they acted accordingly."

Silently, Omi cheered his friend for disagreeing with him. Alone with Omi, with a computer-oriented task to occupy him, Nagi was able to display some measure of his usual behaviour. But the moment anybody else entered the picture, even Youji, the boy clammed up again and refused to do anything at all without a direct order. If Omi hadn't known how badly Nagi really was broken, he'd have said the former pet was being stubborn about it, but he knew that wasn't the case.

He thought about what Nagi had said, and then turned to run the shots of the attack again. This time he paid more attention to the way the attackers worked, rather than straining to get a good look at their faces. Once more he saw the door burst open, saw Nagi picked up and flung backwards by an invisible force, knocking over half the furniture in the room on his way to the far wall. Farfarello had leapt up from his chair and thrown one of his knives, which ended up buried in the shoulder of one attacker. From the angle of the camera it was impossible to tell whether it had been a heart shot or not, but knowing what Farfarello was capable of, Omi was willing to bet that his target was now very dead.

Farfarello stopped and stood dead still in the centre of the room for a moment, then clutched at his head and collapsed. He wound up sprawled exactly where Youji and Aya had found him, halfway behind the overturned couch. By this time Crawford and Schuldig had stood and drawn their guns, but as one they dropped the guns and reeled, as if they'd suddenly become extremely dizzy. Although there was no sound recorded, Omi knew Schuldig was screaming by the look on the telepath's face. Crawford collapsed, then Schuldig, dropping where they stood.

All that time Nagi had been fighting the telekinetic force holding him, struggling to get loose or use his own powers. He had been slammed against the wall repeatedly, until finally he slumped over and stopped moving. The invisible force let him hover for a moment, then dropped him to the floor where he lay limp and twisted.

Then the assailants moved into the room, picked up Schuldig, Crawford, and their own injured companion, and they left without giving Nagi or Farfarello so much as a second glance. There had been three of them - the two remaining carried the bodies out using telekinesis.

Omi checked the clock on the playback. "Less than five minutes from start to finish," he noted. "They moved like clockwork. And you're right, they're acting like they're assuming there are elements they don't know about, and adjusting accordingly." He frowned. "These are professionals. Very highly trained professionals. I'd think somebody had taken out a contract on you, except that they're also obviously psychics."

"Estet didn't go in for that kind of training," Nagi said thoughtfully. "Not that I know of - they never trained us. And except for Schwartz and the Elders, I don't think there were a lot of powerful psychics in Estet."

Omi nodded, running the video file back again to the moment the door opened, and slowing it down. "Crawford recognizes them... but Schuldig doesn't," he said after a moment. "So... maybe they were from a part of Estet that most members didn't know about, but Crawford knew them for some reason? Maybe he'd seen them in a vision?" He paused. "Which reminds me, why didn't he see this coming? I'd say this qualifies as a significant event!"

"He was having trouble with his powers," the telekinetic replied. "That's why we were meeting... he wanted to tell us about it, and find out if any of us were having trouble as well. He'd only just started to explain when... when the door buzzed."

Leaning back, the Weiss hacker started ticking points off on his fingers. "Crawford starts having trouble with his powers, and shortly thereafter a group of psychics who can block you and Schuldig shows up. I don't think that's any kind of coincidence... the trouble Crawford was having must have been a result of whatever was blocking you." Nagi nodded silently, and Omi continued. "They were well trained and used to working together. They were powerful, on a level with Schwartz. You don't know of anyone else in Estet who was that powerful, but that may not mean anything - I doubt you would have been told everything about the organization. And besides," he smiled wryly. "How many psychic paramilitary organizations can there BE out there? They must have been from Estet."

"Unfortunately, that won't help us find them," Nagi said, shoulders slumping. "Estet had safehouses and bolt holes all over the world. They could be anywhere." Omi heard the tears trembling just beneath his friend's voice.

He stood and crossed to the bed, sitting beside Nagi and wrapping a comforting arm around the smaller boy's shoulders. "Everybody screws up eventually," he said softly. "Sooner or later they'll leave something for us to find, and we'll track them down."

"But what if it's already too late?" Nagi whispered back, anguished. "What if they've already k-killed Crawford and... a-and..."

Omi hushed him by kissing him gently. "Don't think about it, Liebe. If they'd wanted them dead, they wouldn't have bothered to kidnap them. So they'll probably keep them alive for a good long time yet."

Nagi nodded, and turned back to his laptop. Omi stood, debating whether he wanted to return to his own work, or make them both some dinner. They'd already been at this all day - for once Youji had covered Omi's shift in the shop without complaint.

"I found something!" Nagi exclaimed abruptly from behind him. "Omi, I found something!"

Startled, the white hunter turned and knelt on the bed again, so he could see the laptop screen. "What? Where?" he demanded.

"The parking lot... I've got a camera down there, just in case," Nagi said. He started the video file moving again, and they both watched as several shadowy forms appeared on the left side of the frame. Two men, three limp bodies trailing along behind them like an eerie parade, and one new addition - a child, perhaps ten or twelve. Omi frowned. The shots of the attackers here were even worse than the ones in the apartment. He was just about to ask what Nagi had meant when he saw it.

"The liscence plate!" he shouted as the figures piled into a van and drove away. "We can run it through the database and see what comes up."

He scrambled back to his own computer and logged into the Kritiker network, accessing the police databases. He started the search going on the plate numbers. "Don't get too excited," he said as the search crawled along. He wasn't sure whether he was cautioning himself, or Nagi, or both. "It's entirely likely they stole the car, or switched the plates."

"We've got the make and model of the van, too," Nagi pointed out. "Though it's too dark to see the colour."

"Mm, right," Omi nodded, pulling up a different database and entering the information on the van. "If it was stolen, or if they dumped it somewhere and it's been found, it'll show up here."

"It has to tell us something... it HAS to," Nagi said quietly, fervently. Omi knew how he felt... if this turned out to be a useless lead, then they really had nowhere else to look. These people were very good at covering their tracks, and as Nagi had pointed out, they had world-wide resources, whereas Weiss only had resources within Japan. Silently he willed the computer search to find something.

When his computer beeped a few minutes later, he was almost afraid to look at the results. If he didn't look, then he could just keep believing that it would give them the answer...

"Well?" Nagi demanded after a moment, impatience overcoming his usual reticence entirely. "What does it SAY?"

Omi finally looked up, and nearly whooped with relief when he saw information on the screen. It still might not lead them anywhere useful, but at least it was a place to START. "The liscence plates are for a sedan, not a van," he said, scanning the information quickly. "They must have switched the plates." Hastily he scribbled down the address of the registered owner of the plates. "We'll talk to the owner, see what he knows. A van with a description that matches the one on the video was reported stolen this morning... after the attack, but I'll bet the owner just didn't realize it was gone until he went outside to go to work today." He wrote that address down, too.

"If it's stolen, they'll probably ditch it quickly and change vehicles," Nagi pointed out, eyes shining with excitement. "When the van is found, that will tell us which direction they were heading in."

"Right!" Omi agreed. He tore off the notepaper he'd written the address on and jumped up. "You stay here, and keep an eye on the police databases. I'm going to go out and talk to these people, see if they can give us any more clues." He stopped at Nagi's side and dropped a spontaneous kiss on the younger boy's cheek. "Good work, Liebe. If you need anything, just go down to the flowershop and ask Youji, okay? I won't be gone too long."

Nagi flushed at the praise, and nodded. "I'll be okay," he replied quietly. "You go find them."

Omi grabbed his helmet and the keys to his bike, and left the room. Trotting down the stairs, he entered the flowershop and looked around. Aya was working on an ikebana arrangement at the table, and Ken was watering some of the flowers. Youji was nowhere to be seen.

"Did Youji skip out?" Omi asked, surprised. Not that Youji didn't worm his way out of his shifts more often than not, but his lover had promised him that he would cover for Omi for as long as it took for the hacker to track down Schwartz's assailants.

"No, he's doing deliveries," Ken replied. "Man, I swear, I've never seen him this diligent. He volunteered to do the deliveries, and he hates doing them. It's kind of a nice change."

"No kidding," Omi replied drily. "We've found a possible lead... I'm going to go check it out. Nagi's upstairs watching for any more information, but I told him to come down if he needed anything. Be nice," he added sternly, glaring in Aya's direction. "He's fragile right now."

"I'll make sure he's okay," Ken offered. "I'll go up and check on him every so often, just in case."

Omi smiled at his best friend. "Thank you, Ken-kun. I shouldn't be gone too long. If Nagi does find something, call me on my cell." With a last wave he headed out the back door, into the alley where they kept their vehicles. Pulling on his helmet, he started his bike and headed out, determined to squeeze every possible bit of information he could out of these leads. He had to find Schuldig, and soon... Nagi simply wouldn't be able to survive for long without the telepath.


	4. Chapter 4

Brad cursed his inability to tell how much time had passed. Their captors had searched them thoroughly, and taken anything that might conceivably be or be used as a weapon in any way - and that included anything metal, like watches.

Not that it would have helped him to know how much time had passed, but at least it would be one less thing to fret over. He was a man who liked to have control and order in his life; as Schuldig frequently complained, he tended to micromanage everything around him. This was partly because of his need to minimize variables in order to use his powers more efficiently, but it was also partly just a facet of his personality.

Right now he was in control of almost nothing, and any order in his life had been established by someone else, not him. Although he had tried to train himself to use his powers as a check and a last resort, rather than as his primary planning tool, he was realizing now that he relied on them far more than he'd realized. He'd felt awkward and sluggish since waking up in this cell, and at first he'd thought it was a reaction to being knocked out. As time passed and the feeling persisted, however, he came to understand that his precognition actually had him _contstantly_ living a split second ahead of time. It was such a subtle effect, and was so consistent, that he had never before recognized that aspect of his abilities until now when it was missing.

What worried him more, however, was the total silence from the cell on his left. Schuldig had continued to scream for a very long time as Emmanuel rearranged his mind, and nothing Brad had been able to say or do had deterred the older telepath. Emmanuel had continued to stand before them, half in trance, for quite some time after Schuldig had finally passed out.

Brad had tried to subvert the child accompanying the Instructor while the man's attention was elsewhere, but he'd had no luck. The youth didn't respond to anything Brad said, simply staring blankly into space. Finally he'd given up, and simply stood there with his hands clenched around the bars, seething with hatred and glaring at Emmanuel.

Now, however, he was fairly certain that several hours had passed since the telepath had left them, taking the child with him. Brad had paced the length of his cell for quite some time, trying to vent his frustration at being so helpless. Eventually he'd flung himself down on the cot and just stared at the wall separating him from Schuldig, as if he could see through it if he just looked hard enough.

Normally the calmest, most unflappable member of Schwartz, the American now felt distinctly on edge. He despised this feeling of helplessness, of not knowing what was going to happen next. He couldn't imagine how ordinary people could live with this constant, total uncertainty. Events sometimes managed to sneak up and surprise him, if he wasn't using his powers assiduously enough, but it only happened rarely. Between that and his worry for Schuldig, he was barely able to contain himself.

The German hadn't made a single sound since he'd stopped screaming. Brad couldn't even hear him breathing, though he was fairly certain Schuldig wasn't dead. Emmanuel had seemed pleased when he'd left, and Brad had gotten the distinct impression that Emmanuel very much wanted Schuldig alive and well.

Whatever the older man had done, it hadn't triggered the wave of destruction that Brad had so often seen in his visions whenever he contemplated trying to bring Schuldig's memories back. It occured to the precog that he hadn't considered that particular possibility in a very long time - not since he'd given up on ever having Lukas return, and had arranged Schuldig's happiness with Nagi. It was possible that the years had dulled whatever memory it was that Schuldig was hiding from, enabeling him to be reminded of who he had once been.

Brad was shocked to discover that he honestly wasn't sure whether that thought appealed to him or not. On the one hand, he'd longed for the companionship of his former best friend for so long, it was a constant part of who he was. On the other, he had truly let go of his love for his friend, releasing Lukas in his mind, wanting only for him to be happy with Nagi. If Schuldig regained his memories now, after so long... how would that effect their partnership in Schwartz? Would it tear them apart, or bring them closer together? Would Nagi be able to adjust to such an abrupt change?

Once more he cursed the loss of his powers as he automatically reached to see the future possibilities and ran into a blank wall. He was afraid that if this continued, he really might begin to lose his grasp on reality, creating hallucinatory visions sheerly out of desperation to KNOW what would happen. Just as Schuldig had already begun to question the reality of people around him, now that he couldn't sense them any more.

A soft moan cut into his wandering thoughts, followed by quiet but heartfelt swearing in German. "Schuldig?" he said, standing quickly and making his way to the corner of his cell. "Are you awake?"

There was a startled silence, and then Schuldig replied in English. "Brad? My God, is that you?" His voice was soft, and he sounded as if Brad's voice was the last thing on earth he'd expected to hear.

As always the sound of his name said in Schuldig's voice made Brad uncomfortable, especially given his earlier thoughts about the past. But he decided that now was not the time to berate the German for using his proper name... he was too relieved that Schuldig was conscious and coherent once again. "Yes," he answered in the same language. "How do you feel?"

"Like a piece of shit that just had a Mack truck run over it," the German said drily. Brad's lips twitched.

"Sounds like you're just fine," he replied, voice equally dry. "What did he do to you, can you tell?"

"What did WHO do to me?" He heard the telepath rustling about in his cell, then footsteps approached the corner nearest Brad. "Where the hell are we?"

"Don't you remember? We were captured," Brad told him, growing concerned. "They did something to you... one of the telepaths was trying to rearrange your mind."

"Well... I feel fine," Schuldig answered slowly, "But I sure as hell don't remember being captured. What the fuck is going on?"

"What's the last thing you remember?" Brad asked, mind racing over the possibilities. Perhaps Emmanuel had caused some blackouts in Schuldig's memory, either on purpose or as a side effect of whatever else he was trying to do. Either way, they needed to figure out how much the German had lost.

There was a pause, presumably as Schuldig tried to arrange his thoughts. "The last thing I remember... fuck, it's hard to think. Like the neurons are swimming through tar, or something." He made a frustrated noise. "There's some stuff I can't really remember... feels like a nightmare or something, all dull and fuzzy and vague. Nothing definite, just impressions, you know? Terror, pain, desperation." His voice shook slightly. "The last thing I can remember clearly is... uh... shit."

"Don't force it," Brad advised, eyes narrowed. Presumably the 'nightmare' was what Schuldig's already vague memories of the attack on Schwartz had become. "Just relax and tell me the easiest thing for you to remember."

He heard the telepath take a deep breath and hold it for a count of ten before blowing it out again. "I remember... talking to somebody... uh... Dekane, I think. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Everybody was strung out and nervous... the Instructors were all going nuts. He told me I was being assigned to the field early, that my plane was leaving soon and I had to go pack." The younger man paused, then shook his head. "That's it, that's the last thing I can remember clearly."

Brad was absolutely certain that he'd just had a telekinetic blast to the chest. He couldn't breath, and he was positive his heart had stopped. He clutched at the bars of the cell for support. "My God... Lukas?"

 

* * *

Ken finished ringing up the order, and smiled cheerfully at the customer as he handed her the receipt. "Thank you," he said, and she smiled back at him and gathered up her new potted fern. "Please come back soon!"

The bell over the door jangled as she left, and then blessed silence descended. The schoolgirl rush had been worse than usual, and with only Ken and Aya there to handle it, it had seemed to last for hours. The last of the girls had finally left for dinner, leaving the two of them alone in the shop.

He stretched his arms above his head, feeling the vertebrae in his neck and mid-back pop back into place. "Damn, I think this has been one of the longest days of my entire life!" he exclaimed wearily. "Youji sure is taking a long time with those deliveries."

"Probably why he volunteered in the first place," Aya noted drily, sweeping up the leaves and petals littering the floor. "So he could get out and avoid the rush."

"True," Ken grimaced. Sighing, he glanced toward the door up to the apartments. "I feel bad, I told Omi I'd check on Nagi every so often, and I haven't had a chance... hey!" he said in surprise, seeing a small form standing mostly hidden in the shadows behind the door. "Nagi? Is that you? C'mon in, we won't bite you."

Slowly, the dark-haired boy edged his way into the shop, eyes wide and flitting nervously between Ken and Aya. He was walking oddly, a strange gliding limp, and Ken realized after a moment that he must have been using his telekinesis to allow him to walk without putting weight on his bad ankle. Wryly, the ex-soccer player thought of a few times in his life where he'd have paid his weight in gold to have that ability.

The telekinetic swallowed, and hesitantly said one word. "Y-youji?" he asked, voice wavering.

"He's not here," Aya said harshly, eyes narrowed at the boy. His tone was distinctly unwelcoming, and while Ken understood his lover's feelings, he couldn't help but feel that Aya was being just a little too tough on the boy. Nagi was obviously scared and uncertain, and probably feeling rather trapped, surrounded by his enemies as he was.

"He went out to do deliveries," Ken added, trying to soothe the frightened teen. "He should be back soon. Omi ought to be back soon, too. I told him I'd help you while they were out. Did you need something?"

Nagi shook his head, and edged a little closer, holding out a piece of paper towards Ken. "I f-found something else," he whispered, eyes lowered and fixed on the floor at his feet. "The police found the v-van dumped outside the city."

"Hey, all right!" Ken said, taking the paper and glancing at the address. "That'll give us another point to check out. I'll go call Omi and let him know. Good work, Nagi."

The boy brightened somewhat at the praise, and Ken reflected that he was rather like an abused puppy, expecting blows rather than encouragement. The thought made him absolutely sick... given Nagi's situation, the only people HE could think of who would have brought about that kind of abused look in the boy's eyes were Crawford or Schuldig. Given that he knew for a fact that Nagi was Schuldig's sub, it didn't take him long to decide where his money lay.

Which meant it was possible - likely, even - that the German had done the same thing to Omi, or started to. The idea of seeing Omi edging around like this, too frightened to raise his voice above a whisper or look anybody in the eyes, had Ken trembling on the edge of rage.

"I'll be right back," he said, and went into the back room quickly before he could get really angry and blow up at nothing. Once out of sight, he took a couple of deep breaths and forced some control over his temper. On the spot, he decided that if he had anything to say about it, Omi was damn well never going to be put back into that bastard's hands - and neither was Nagi. And he was going to make damn sure he HAD something to say about it.

He messed with the seedlings for a few minutes, trying to calm himself down before calling Omi. If he didn't, he'd probably end up saying something he'd regret later... or causing Omi to suspect that he was planning to interfere. Ken knew how stubborn his best friend could be... sometimes you just had to do things for his own good.

When he thought he was calm enough, he grabbed the shop phone and dialed Omi's cell. It rang a few times before the boy picked up, and Ken could hear the sound of traffic in the background. "Hey," he greeted his friend.

"Ken-kun! Is everything okay?" Omi asked, sounding concerned.

"Yeah, we're fine," Ken answered, leaning back against the counter. "Nagi found some new information... the police have located the van."

"Oh, good!" Omi exclaimed. "Where is it? Have they hauled it away yet?"

Ken relayed the address Nagi had given him. "I'm not sure if they've taken it yet. If they haven't, they might still be in the area, looking around... make sure they don't see you."

"Teach me to do my job," Omi teased him. "I'll check it out - that's not too far from where I am now. How's Nagi doing?"

"He seems a little skittish," Ken noted, reminding himself not to get angry again. "Is he always like that?"

"Not usually this bad," Omi replied. "But yeah, he's generally a little touchy, especially around people he doesn't know. Youji's still not back? Figures. Take care of Nagi for me, Ken-kun."

"Sure thing, buddy," Ken agreed. "I'll see you when you get back." He hung up, and sighed. Omi had sounded very glad to have the new lead, and Ken hoped that meant the white hunter wasn't having any luck. As far as he was concerned, it would be best for all of them if Schuldig and Crawford just disappeared into the void.

At last he drew a deep breath and headed back out into the main room. He was brought up short in the doorway by the sight of his lover, who had backed a cowering Nagi into a corner. Aya was snarling something too low for Ken to catch most of it, but he heard 'Aya-chan' and knew this was trouble.

"Aya!" He exclaimed, rushing over. He reached them just as Aya drew his fist back, and caught the older man's hand. "Aya, enough! What the hell are you doing?"

The look on his lover's face was beyond rage - it was the same all-consuming hatred he had once held for Takatori. "He has the nerve to come to US for help... to rescue the people who tried to use my sister to summon a demon... and now we find out they've subverted Omi and Youji as well?"

Ken took one look at the absolutely terrified look on Nagi's face, and the way the youth was plastered back into the corner to try to get away from the enraged assassin, and hauled Aya back away from him. The redhead turned on him, intending to chew him out no doubt, but Ken was more than familiar with his lover's mercurial moods, and beat him to the punch.

"Aya, forget about being angry for a second and THINK, will you?" Ken commanded in a harsh whisper. "I'll be the first one to join you in hating Schuldig, Crawford, and Farfarello, okay? As far as I'm concerned, I hope they're already well on their way to Hell. But for God's sake, take another look at that kid, will you? We've seen enough abuse victims in our work... you KNOW they way they react. Flinching away from every little gesture, afraid to draw attention to themselves... that boy is literally COVERED in scars. Every damn inch of him, just about. We already know he's a sub... Christ, Aya, he was afraid to EAT without explicit permission from Schuldig."

Aya had remained steely through most of that diatribe, but Ken saw his eyes starting to soften near the end. Knowing he was finally getting through to the other man, he sighed and softened his voice. "Just LOOK at the kid, will you? He..." he glanced over to prove his point, and Nagi was nowhere to be seen. "Hey, where'd he go?" he finished in surprise.

Glancing over, Aya blinked and looked startled. "He was there a second ago..." They both turned to look around the shop. There was no sign of the telekinetic, and neither of them had heard him leave. "He can't have gone far with his ankle as bad as it is," Aya finished, but he didn't sound quite certain.

"I wouldn't bet on that," Ken replied. "He was using his powers to help him walk when he came down here - I don't think he was putting any weight on the foot at all." He sighed and scrubbed at his face. "He's probably hiding under Omi's bed, or something. I'll go look for him in a minute. I want to finish this, first. What happened? What set you off?"

Aya had the grace to look slightly ashamed. "I... lost my temper," he admitted. "I asked him to give me one good reason why we should even be looking for Crawford and Schuldig... except possibly to make sure they were finished off."

"And he... what? Argued with you?" Ken asked, doubting it.

"No... he just... stood there." Aya shook his head. "Looking at the floor. I thought he was admitting that he had no good reasons, and it pissed me off."

"I think he was probably just too scared to answer you," Ken pointed out. "You come off as pretty overbearing sometimes, lover. He's really skittish - having you back him into a corner probably didn't help, either. Out of curiosity, do you have any self-preservation instinct at all? Remember what he did to the Schreient mansion? Backing him into a corner and snarling at him wasn't the smartest thing you've ever done, regardless of his attitude."

"You're probably right," Aya admitted, sinking down into one of the chairs with a sigh. "Looking back on it, he does act like an abuse victim. A really badly abused one. I was just too angry to see straight."

Ken couldn't help but smile a bit at that. "Well, at least you're willing to admit it. That's a hell of a step up from your total obsession with Takatori."

The redhead nodded. "You think Crawford or Schuldig did this to him?"

"Yeah, that's what I figure," Ken agreed darkly. "My bet is Schuldig, but Crawford couldn't have NOT known about it, so even if he wasn't directly responsible, he was still letting it go on. What worries ME..." he paused significantly, "is what we know now about Omi's relationship with him. If he was abusing Nagi badly enough to make him act like he hasn't got a thought of his own, do you really think he wouldn't have done something similar to Omi?"

"I'm certainly not buying their insistence that they're with him of their own free will," Aya noted. "He's done something to them... like he did with Sakura-chan, forcing her to fire that gun at me."

"If we're right, then Nagi is every bit as much of a victim as anybody else Schwartz ever hurt or killed," Ken pointed out. "Christ, remember what they did to Tot? I don't think he had a hell of a lot of choice about following his orders. So go easy on him, okay?"

After a long moment, Aya nodded. "I'll try," he said. "I've hated them all for so long, I can't promise to change overnight. But I'll try."

Ken grinned, injecting a note of lightness into his voice. "And hey, just think... if we can convert him, get him to agree to join us... Christ, there won't be ANYTHING Weiss can't do!" He shrugged out of his apron and hung it on its hook. "I'm gonna run up and check on him, make sure he doesn't die of sheer fright or something."

He trotted up the stairs, heading for his own apartment first. Digging through his drawers, he found the door key Omi had given him some time ago. He let himself into Omi's apartment, kicking off his shoes at the door automatically.

"Nagi?" he called, heading for the bedroom, figuring he'd probably find the boy there. "Nagi? Hey, don't be scared... Aya gets pissy sometimes, you just learn to ignore it after a while. He's not mad at you anymore." He opened the door to the bedroom, and frowned when he didn't see Nagi. "You in here, kid?"

He stood in the doorway for a moment, listening intently. He didn't hear anything but the soft whir of Omi's computer, but that didn't mean anything. Nagi had obviously been scared out of his mind down in the shop - he might very well have hidden somewhere in an attempt to keep himself safe.

"All right... if I was a terrified telekinetic, where would I hide?" Ken muttered to himself as he started poking around the room. He checked under the bed first, and found only a scattering of electronics, floppy disks, and CDs. Chuckling softly to himself at Omi, he moved on to check the closet. He went right inside, pushing past the hanging clothes to check into both corners. There was no sign of the missing psychic.

Crawling out again, Ken dusted off his hands and stood in the center of the room, looking around. Where else might someone conceivably hide? Dredging up distant memories of hide-and-seek games he'd played as a child, he checked every possible hiding place, and even some that were unlikely, like the clothes hamper.

"Well, shit," he finally concluded when he was in the living room again and still hadn't found any clues to the telekinetic's whereabouts. "Maybe he didn't come up here after all..."

He checked his own apartment when it occurred to him that a deadbolt probably wouldn't be much of a deterrent to someone like Nagi. Then he checked Aya's, just in case. He didn't have a key to Youji's apartment, and he wasn't any good at picking locks, so he left that until the playboy returned.

Heading back down the stairs, he entered the shop with a frown on his face. Aya looked up, and raised an eyebrow at his expression. "He causing trouble?" the redhead asked.

"Only indirectly," Ken replied. "I can't find him. He's definitely not in Omi's apartment, mine, or yours. I can't get into Youji's. D'you think he might have hidden somewhere down here?"

As one, they looked at the corner where Aya had backed Nagi against the wall. "The door to the back room is a lot closer than the door to the apartments," Ken noted thoughtfully. "The front door is all the way across the shop, and he'd have had to cross our line of vision to get there. So he's either in Youji's apartment, or he went into the back."

"I've been in the back a couple times since you left," Aya told him, "but if he was hiding I might not have seen him."

"I'll check," Ken offerred, making his way to the back room. He poked around, checking all the storage areas, looking in the cupboards and even into the refrigerator where they kept fresh blooms. Now getting seriously worried, he went down to the mission room and checked there, but there was still no sign of the boy.

Alarmed, he went back up the stairs and looked around the back room. There were only three doors leading from it - the one to the shop, the one to the mission room, and the one to the back alley where they kept their vehicles, and where the trash from the store was dumped. His heart sinking, Ken went out the latter door, scanning the alley.

He almost missed it - in the gravel near the door was a single footprint, too small to belong to any of them. It was pointed in the direction of the street, and was blurred around the edges as if something other than just the shoe had put pressure there.

"Fucking hell," Ken swore, eyes wide as he ran back into the shop. "Aya... we've got a BIG problem!"


	5. Chapter 5

Nagi ran, blinded by the tears he couldn't shed, heedless of the sight he must have presented to passersby. The sun was setting, hovering on the edge of the wester horizon; he ran away from it, following his shadow in an odd game of follow-the-leader.

He couldn't hear the shouts of the people he shoved past, or the blaring horns of the cars that almost hit him whenever he crossed a road. He couldn't even hear his own gasping breaths - all of it was drowned out by Aya's accusations ringing in his ears.

_Worthless... should never have come here... how dare you... what makes you think you deserve... why should we even care?_

The swordsman was absolutely right, Nagi realized miserably now. He never should have come to Weiss for help. This was what came of trying to make his own decisions... now Omi and Youji were in trouble, their teammates were furious with them, Schuldig and Crawford were probably dead, and it was all for nothing. With all the trouble he'd caused for them, Omi and Youji were probably regreting the day they'd ever met him. And without Schuldig, he would only become more of a burden as time went on... they would feel guilty and obligated to help him, even to take him on as a sub to protect him, and that would only cause even more problems.

Aya was right... he _was_ worthless, and he _didn't_ deserve their help. He hadn't been able to save Schuldig or Crawford... hadn't even been able to save himself. Then he had brought more problems to the only other people in the world who had ever cared about him.

He collapsed into the dirt of an alleyway, unable to run any further. His broken ribs were sending sharp stabs of agony through him with every breath he took, but he welcomed the pain. He hoped he _had_ punctured a lung... he was better off dead. With all his heart he wished that he'd died during the attack, rather than living to make more trouble for the people he loved.

A new pain shot through his chest, his heart spasming as his telekinesis clamped down on it, responding to his desperate desire for death. He gasped for breath, vision going grey as his heart struggled to beat and was held motionless by the power of his own mind. He clutched at his chest, the tears finally welling up and spilling over his cheeks to trickle into the grime of the alley. He hadn't realized it would hurt so much to die... but at least after this one last pain, it would all be over. And if there was any kind of merciful god in the universe, perhaps he would be reunited with his Gebieter on the other side.

 _But what if he's not dead?_ his subconsious whispered insistently. _Omi said if they had intended to kill Schuldig and Crawford, they probably wouldn't have taken them in the first place. They'd have left them like they did you and Farfarello. What if he's not dead?_

He tried to convince himself that it didn't matter. When it came right down to it, he'd always been a burden to Schuldig. The German had tried so hard to teach him to think for himself, and although he had improved, this last day proved beyond a doubt that he was still far too dependent on his Master. Without him, Schuldig would be able to move on, to find someone who could be the partner he'd always wanted.

 _Unless he's waiting for you to rescue him,_ that horrid voice whispered again. It was fading now, along with his vision, as the blood slowed in his veins and oxygen starvation started to set in. _You're the only member of Schwartz still alive and free. Weiss obviously isn't going to rescue them. What if he's out there somewhere, clinging to the hope that you'll remember everything he's taught you, and that you'll be able to rescue him?_

Nagi felt the last gasp of life slipping away from him, and at that moment something deep inside him rebelled. No, he said, though there was no breath left in his lungs to shape the word. No, I will not die. I will not give up. Schuldig needs me. He always believed that I could rise above myself some day, and I WILL NOT PROVE HIM WRONG!

Deliberately he released his control on his powers, feeling them swell and break within him. The massive jolt to his system restarted his heart as they burst out of him, smashing into every solid object in his vicinity with all the destructive force of a hurricane gone mad. He gasped for air, clinging to consciousness with the tenacity of a terrier, forcing his battered body to function.

His lungs drew breath, and he expelled it again immediately in an agonized scream. Every nerve was on fire as his telekinesis poured through him, trying to wash him out of his own body. It was worse than when he'd lost control over Tot's death, much, much worse - his abilities had gotten a lot stronger since then. He was vaguely aware of the walls around him crumbling beneath the onslaught, carried up and around in a whirlwind of destruction centering on him. Half hysterical, he realized that the method he'd used to save his own life might very well be the death of him - if the outburst of power didn't kill him, the fall of the debris when his telekinesis was finally exhausted just might.

 

* * *

Omi sped through the rapidly darkening streets, straining his eyes for any sign of Nagi. When Ken had called him to tell him about Nagi's disappearance, he hadn't believe it at first. The idea that Nagi would have just taken off like that was inconceivable; even beyond the fact that it just wasn't like the pet to make a decision like that for himself, where would he GO? Omi was his best hope of finding the rest of Schwartz... even if Schuldig had suddenly regained contact with Nagi, Omi couldn't believe that the German wouldn't have contacted him as well.

But Ken had insisted, relating his search and the footprint he'd discovered outside the door, facing AWAY from the shop, and Omi had been forced to believe him. He'd contacted Youji as well, and now all four of them were out scouring the streets for any sign of the psychic. It had already been over an hour since Nagi had vanished - he could have been almost anywhere by now.

Omi had assigned the other three Weiss members wedge-shaped grid sections of the city to search, while he started at the Koneko and spiraled outwards. Nagi had broken ribs and a sprained ankle, but Omi was willing to bet that wouldn't slow the telekinetic down for a good long time.

As it continued to darken, he flipped his visor up and slowed the bike. He didn't want to turn the headlight on, because then his nightvision would be spoiled and he wouldn't be able to make out anything outside the headlight's arc. If he didn't find anything soon, he was going to go back to the Koneko and get his nightvision goggles to help him search.

His cellphone rang, and he pulled over to the side of the road and answered it. "Omi," he said shortly, praying it would be one of the others with news that Nagi had been found. He didn't like to think of his friend alone outside after dark; Nagi was incapable of saying 'no' to anyone who came off as dominant, and that could get him into a hell of a lot of trouble if he ended up in one of Tokyo's many seedier areas.

"Omi," Ken's voice came over the phone. "There's been a report of a massive explosion in one of the industrial areas. They're tentatively labelling it as a wharehouse accident... but I thought, if Nagi had gotten into trouble..."

"He might cause something like that if he got scared enough," Omi agreed grimly. "Where is it?" Ken reeled off the address, and Omi quickly placed it on his mental map. He whistled. "That's a lot farther from the Koneko than I thought he'd get... but it's not an impossible distance. I should be closest to that area... I'll check it out. Keep looking - this might be a dead end."

"I will," Ken agreed, and hung up. Omi shoved the phone into his jacket and gunned the bike, spinning around and heading back to the last major intersection he'd crossed. He flipped his visor down again, hunching over the handlebars to give him better aerodynamics and more control over the bike. If this explosion HAD been caused by Nagi, then the boy was probably in trouble, possibly a lot of it. It had already occured to him that whoever had attacked Schwartz might just take this opportunity to finish the job they'd botched by killing Nagi while he was alone, without protection.

It wasn't hard to find the site of the explosion - long before he got near it, he could hear the sirens. A column of smoke rose into the darkness of the night, lit eerily red from below by the flames that fed it. Omi skidded his bike to a halt just outside the ring of curious onlookers and rubberneckers, joining them in craning to see into the centre of the blast zone.

One look told Omi that the cause of the explosion was almost certainly a telekinetic, if not Nagi himself. Not only had debris been blasted outwards, but it had been picked up and smashed around repeatedly, forming a spiral blast pattern that couldn't be achieved by any chemical explosive.

He swore quietly under his breath as paramedics carried a stretcher to the waiting ambulance, and he made out Nagi's huddled form. There were police cars and firetrucks everywhere - Omi wasn't going to be able to get him out of there without raising a hell of a lot of questions. The last thing they needed was to have attention drawn to them. If the psychics who had attacked Schwartz hadn't realized before this that Nagi had lived, they would certainly know it when they saw footage of this explosion. Right now it was possible they didn't know about any connection between Schwartz and Weiss... If Omi went in publicly to claim Nagi, it would be simple for the assailants to track down where Nagi had ended up.

He pulled out his cell again as the ambulance drove away, sirens wailing. Punching a number on the speedial, he waited as it rang twice before being picked up. "Manx," he said immediately, not even waiting for the woman to answer. "It's Bombay. I need a favour."

"Omi?" Manx replied, sounding surprised. He could hear the sounds of many conversations behind her - it sounded like she was at a restaurant or theatre. "What's going on? You don't have any work right now." Her oblique references told Omi with certainty that she was in public, and he cursed his bad luck.

"This is a personal emergency," Omi replied grimly. "And before you tell me that personal problems don't get solved using Kritiker resources, let me just say that if this problem gets much bigger, it's going to become a problem for ALL of us."

There was a long pause, and Omi agonized as the ambulance got further away - and closer to whatever hospital it was headed towards. "All right," Manx said at last. "I trust you to know your priorities. But I want a full report first thing in the morning."

He winced; he'd been afraid she'd ask for something like that. There was no point in even trying to write a report that left anything out - when Manx said full, she meant _full_. "You'll get it," he promised, watching his career with Kritiker wash down the drain. There'd be no salvaging it after this. "So you'll help me?"

"Just a moment," she said, and he heard the sound of the talking in the background cut off abruptly. "All right, I'm in private. What do you need?"

"I need you to divert an ambulance before it reaches the hospital," he said, rattling off the number of the ambulance. "I don't care what it takes, it MUST NOT reach the hospital. I can knock the paramedics out long enough to retreive the passenger."

"Has once of Weiss been injured?" Manx's voice sharpened. "There's no need for you to retreive them, I can just have the ambulance diverted to the police hospital, as usual..."

"It's not one of Weiss," he cut her off. Drawing a deep breath, he figured as long as he was sacrificing himself for Nagi's sake, he might as well go all the way. "It's Prodigy. From Schwartz. And if he wakes up alone in a hospital, there probably won't be a hospital left a few minutes later."

Another long pause, while he counted the heartbeats, praying she wouldn't refuse to help him. At last she answered him, her voice very dry. "This had better be a VERY good report, Bombay," she told him crisply. "Give me a few minutes - I'll call you back when I've got the location." She hung up without giving him a chance to acknowledge.

Hanging on to the phone with one hand, he cruised slowly in the direction the ambulance had gone. There were only two hospitals nearby in that direction, and only one of them had an emergency room, so it wasn't hard to figure out where they were probably headed. He did some quick calculations in his head - it was fifteen, maybe twenty minutes from here to the hospital, and it had taken him at least ten to convince Manx to help. If they reached the hospital, there would be nothing Kritiker could do to make Nagi disappear without any records, at least not without a lot more effort than Manx would probably be willing to go to for someone who wasn't even an agent, let alone someone who was an ex-enemy.

At last his phone rang, and he snapped it open before it had finished the first ring. "Bombay," he said.

"We've diverted it," Manx told him, and he sighed audibly with relief. She gave him the address, and he sped up, cutting across two lanes of traffic to make an abrupt left hand turn to get to the location. "I'll expect that report in my email first thing in the morning, shall I?"

"You'll have it," Omi swore. "Assuming we're not all dead by then, of course. Thank you, Manx. I owe you big time."

"You certainly do," she replied, making him wince again at her tone of voice. "Good luck, Bombay, and hurry... I wasn't able to delay it for more than a few minutes."

He hung up without acknowledging, stuffing it into his pocket and pouring on the speed. He zipped recklessly through traffic, uncaring of the laws he was breaking or the danger he was putting other people in. The only thing that mattered now was reaching Nagi before the ambulance took off again, or before the telekinetic woke up.

He saw the flashing lights ahead, and pushed his bike just a little faster. The ambulance had taken a side street that was a shortcut towards the hospital, and had been brought up short by an accident that sprawled over the entire street. It had attempted to back out, only to be stopped by a dumptruck that had backed into the street and stalled. The truck driver and the paramedics were currently in the middle of a shouting match, gesturing and swearing at each other.

He slid to a stop just behind the truck, and caught the driver's eye, giving a hand signal that identified him as a Kritiker agent. The man nodded slightly and gave the correct counter sign, as did the drivers of the two cars that had blocked the road ahead with their accident.

He grabbed two of the tranquilizer darts that he always carried with him in case of emergency, and seconds later both paramedics were slumped on the ground, sound asleep. After that it was a moment's work to open the doors, and the medic who had been riding in the back with Nagi was unconscious as well. Omi climbed up inside, noting the equipment hooked up to his friend and sometime lover. There were defribbrilator burns on Nagi's chest, and the medic had been holding the paddles ready - the telekinetic's heart must have stopped at least once. That made Omi nervous about taking him away from proper medical help, but the readouts said he was stable enough now, and he really didn't think leaving Nagi in the hands of strangers was a good idea.

Now the only problem would be getting him home - there was no way he could transport the unconscious telekinetic on his bike. Omi glanced around, cursing himself for not contacting Youji before he'd arrived. There was no telling how far away the playboy was, or how long it would take him to get here. If the ambulance didn't reach the hospital soon, people would start looking for it - they couldn't afford to wait.

"Bombay, isn't it?" one of the car drivers involved in the 'accident' appeared at the door. Omi blinked and nodded, surprised the man knew his codename. "Queen told us you might need transportation... neither of the cars is actually damaged, you can take either. We'll get your bike back to Kritiker, and they'll return it to you."

"Thank you!" Omi replied, grateful that somebody at least had been thinking ahead. "I appreciate it. Can you help me get him out of here?"

Working together, they slid the stretcher out of the ambulance and got it wheeled over to one of the cars. A boy about Nagi's age climbed out of the backseat of one and held the door open, smiling at them both as they lifted the telekinetic inside. "Here," the other driver said, tossing Omi the keys. "Take good care of her, she's an old friend."

For a moment Omi was confused, and then he realized the man meant the car. "I will," he promised. "So long as you take good care of my bike!"

The blond man who had first addressed him laughed and clapped him on the back. "We'll treat it like it was our own firstborn child," he replied. "You'd better get going. Oh, and tell Ran that Crashers send their regards."

 

* * *

"My God... Lukas?"

Leaning against the bars of his cage, Lukas blinked at the stunned tone in Brad's voice. The older man sounded like he'd just taken the recoil of a fully automatic weapon dead center in his chest. "Yeah?" he responded, concerned. "You okay, Brad? You sound like you're having a heart attack or something over there..."

"I think I am," Brad replied wryly, voice shaking. "I never thought I would ever talk to you again."

THAT confused the hell out of Lukas. "You were talking to me just fine before you asked me what I remembered," he pointed out. "Who the hell did you think you were talking to?"

"Lukas... take a moment, and take stock of yourself," the other psychic told him. "Don't argue," he added as Lukas opened his mouth to do just that. "Just do it."

Lukas sighed and closed his eyes, beginning the self-check they'd all been taught as a method of keeping their powers under better control. Immediately his eyes flew open again. Where the buzzing of every thought in the area should have been, there was only silence in his mind. "My telepathy!" he exclaimed, panicked. "And the empathy too! My powers, they're gone!"

"They're being blocked," Brad responded, sounding a bit calmer now. "I don't think they're truly gone, I think they're just blocking us somehow. But that's not what I meant. Look again."

Frowning, Lukas raised his hands to his temples to help centre himself. His frown turned to a look of startled surprise when his fingers tangled in something long and silky. "What the... fuck?" he said, examining it. It was hair - carrot orange hair, long enough to probably nearly reach his waist. It was definitely his - one sharp tug proved that. He stared at the fistful of hair, eyes wide.

"Brad... what the FUCK... how much have I forgotten?" he asked, and now it was his turn to have his voice shake.

"Years," Brad replied, voice grim. "I'm not sure how he did it... but that bastard seems to have FLIPPED your amnesia."

"Amnesia?" Lukas felt like he was turning into a parrot. His mind was too stunned to come up with anything much more coherent. "What do you mean, amnesia?"

He heard Brad sigh, and could picture the man pushing his glasses up on his nose with that habitual gesture of his. "When I found you again, you had no memory of the Institute, or anything else," the precognitive told him. "Your mind was hiding from a traumatic experience, and I couldn't reverse the effect, not without killing you and possibly myself as well. In all this time you've never shown any signs of remembering anything from our time together at the Institute... I had given up hope of it ever happening."

There was a raw pain hidden beneath the calm surface of the other psychic's words. Only someone who had known him as well, and as intimately, as Lukas had, would have been able to catch it. It was an old pain, worn at the edges with time, but it was still sharp at the centre. Lukas frowned as he realized he was more than hearing it - he was sensing it.

"Brad... give me your hand," he said, reaching out through the bars. Something in his voice must have told the precognitive not to argue, because the older man reached out as well, and they clasped hands between their cells.

Lukas felt the differences in their grasp instantly. His hand had still been much smaller than Brad's the last time they had done this. Now they were nearly a match; though Brad's palm was still a bit wider than his, now Lukas's fingers were longer than Brad's. It was the grip of two adults, not a boy barely into his teens with a man barely out of them.

The feeling of pain intensified - barely, but the difference was perceptible. Closing his eyes, Lukas concentrated on the feeling of building an impenetrable shield, the kind he had created to allow them to talk without the Instructors overHearing them in the past. He couldn't feel what he was doing, as far as he could tell there was no real outward effect... except for a gradual increase in his awareness of Brad's emotions.

He sent an experimental charge down the connection, and Brad's grip tightened on his almost painfully. "You..." the precognitive started, and Lukas squeezed his hand back.

"Don't," he said, projecting a sense of danger. _*Can you hear me?*_ he projected, trying to tag the thought on top of the empathic connection he'd already established.

 _*Yes,*_ Brad replied. His Voice was distant and difficult to make out, but it was there. _*What are you doing?*_

 _*I think they aren't blocking my empathy,*_ Lukas replied. _*Either because they don't know about it, or because it got lost among my telepathy as usual. And it's a weakness in whatever is blocking my telepathy, as well.*_

He continued to weave shields around shields around shields, creating the tightest wall he'd ever dreamt of, and then piling more shields on top of that. It was a strain, especially since he couldn't quite feel what he was doing, but it was also helping - their connection was getting clearer by the moment.

 _*Are you shielding us?*_ Brad asked after a long moment, sounding startled again. _*Whatever you're doing, don't stop... it's working. I'm starting to get flashes again... we may yet be able to get out of this mess in one piece. Don't push yourself past your limits... but keep it up as long as you can. If I can just get a good enough look at the future, I'll be able to see how to get us the hell out of here.*_

Grimly Lukas tightened his grip on the other man's hand, and kept weaving more shields into the pile.


	6. Chapter 6

Youji had never been more grateful for anything in his life than he had been to get the phone call that Nagi was safely in Omi's possession. He was a little worried by the tone of his lover's voice, but there wasn't much he could say or do over the phone. Comforting would have to wait until they were all back in one place.

He made tracks back to the Koneko, making much better time than he had been because he wasn't searching for signs of the telekinetic any more. There was a strange car in the alley when he got there; he hesitated for a moment, and then saw Omi climb out of the driver's seat. THAT worried him quite a bit - for Omi to ditch his bike and steal a car, Nagi would have to be in very bad shape indeed. He pulled in behind the strange car, and Aya pulled up beside them a moment later, followed closely by Ken.

"Is he okay?" Youji asked the moment he was within earshot of Omi. His lover looked torn between fury and distress, and shook his head.

"He completely totalled the area he was in," the Weiss leader said as Aya and Ken joined them. "It was even worse than what he did to the Schreient mansion. They were already taking him to the hospital when I got there - I had to call Manx and ask her to divert it so I could get him out." Youji winced at that; Manx was sure to want a full explanation for that kind of favour.

"That's Bishop's car," Aya said, sounding startled. Omi glanced at him, and gave him a tiny smile.

"If Bishop is one of Crashers, then yes. The blond one said to give you their regards. Youji, help me get Nagi out of the backseat? I think he's still unconscious. They had to restart his heart at least once, and I'm worried about him."

Ken looked stricken when he heard that. "Oh, Christ... what the hell happened to him?"

"That's what I'd like to know," Omi said dangerously as Youji opened the back door of the car and crawled halfway inside, careful not to jostle the unconscious telekinetic. "There is no way in hell that I will believe he just 'took off' on his own. You have no idea..."

"Omi," Youji interrupted him, withdrawing from the car with Nagi cradled in his arms. His lover broke off, startled, and looked at him. "Take Nagi upstairs and get him settled. Don't come back down. I'll join you in a bit."

Frowning, Omi started to argue with him. "Youji, I..."

"That's an order," Youji added quietly. His voice was firm, and the look in his eyes was hard. Omi gaped at him for a moment, stunned, and Youji knew he was going to hear about this later. He and Omi had an agreement - when Omi was wearing his collar, then Youji was Dom and no questions were asked. The rest of the time, Omi was free to do as he wished, and as leader of Weiss was actually in authority over the rest of them. Youji had just invoked his status as Omi's Dom outside of that agreement, when Omi wasn't wearing his collar, and he was going to pay for it eventually. But right now it had exactly the effect he'd hoped for; Omi lowered his eyes to the ground and nodded stiffly, coming forward to take Nagi's limp form.

Youji waited until Omi and Nagi were safely inside the building before rounding on the other two. Ken was gaping at him much as Omi had just a moment ago; not surprising, neither Aya nor Ken had ever witnessed this side of his relationship with Omi. "Now the two of you are going to come inside with me, down to the mission room, and you're going to tell me EXACTLY what you said or did to Nagi to make him run off like that," he continued dangerously. "Because Omi is right, there is no way that Nagi did this on his own without provocation. If we're going to fix this, we need to know precisely what you said to him, word for word."

"Youji, what the FUCK was that all about?" Ken exploded. "Now I KNOW there's something going on here! Schuldig is conditioning Omi the same way he did to Nagi, isn't he? Omi's not the kind of person to just meekly follow somebody's orders like that!"

"YOU do not know as much about Omi as you think you do," Youji bit back. "Inside. Now. Unless you want the whole damn neighbourhood to hear about all of our secrets?"

That shut Ken up, at least for a moment. Aya had said nothing this entire time, but the expression on his face said he was torn between fury and guilt. Good... guilt meant he realized he'd done something wrong, and that was definitely a step in the right direction. Youji marched them inside and down the stairs to the mission room, refusing to say a word before they were safely inside.

"Now," he began, cutting off Ken's attempt to start another diatribe. "First of all, I think it's time we cleared up a few misconceptions. What exactly do you think Schuldig did to Nagi and Omi?"

"It's obvious!" Ken burst out, eyes narrowed. "The way Nagi slinks around, flinching away from every gesture that was even vaguely in his direction, afraid to raise his voice or draw attention to himself! Schuldig is abusing him, and he's done the same thing to Omi, hasn't he?"

Youji pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to stave off the headache he could feel forming. "I'm not even sure where to start with that. First of all, the only 'conditioning' Schuldig has done to Omi is convincing him that he was worth something." He shook his head when Ken started to object. "Oh no, you don't get to talk again until I'm through. Omi is a submissive, Ken. He likes it, he enjoys giving up control that way. It's a tension release; he's damn young for all the responsibility that he has to shoulder. You've never seen that side of him because he works damn hard to suppress it most of the time - and because for him it's a sometimes-thing, not an all-the-time lifestyle like Nagi lives. I'm not really all that comfortable as a Dom, that's why Omi still wears Schuldig's collar instead of mine. But when it comes right down to it, yes, I am his Dom, and when I give him an order I expect it to be obeyed without question."

He sighed and looked at both of them. "Now, for the rest of it... Nagi was broken long before Schuldig and Crawford found him. He was a pet; totally incapable of making his own decisions. He needed a Dom to tell him to eat, to sleep, hell, he practically needed permission to BREATHE."

"How do you know that?" Aya demanded, speaking at last. "How do you know he was worse before he joined them?"

"If you mean, did I see it for myself, the answer is no," Youji answered him. "I have to take Schuldig's word for it. Don't object yet! I've also seen the way he treats Nagi, and let me tell you... if there is ONE thing in the world that Schuldig truly cares about more than himself, it's Nagi. He likes me well enough, and he loves Omi, but Nagi is the only thing more important to him than anything else. He wouldn't harm that kid if his life depended on it. He's done everything he can to coax Nagi into living his own life; praised him every time he made the least little decision for himself, forced him into situations where he didn't have any guidance and had to choose on his own, encouraged him to argue and disagree with people. Nagi has visibly improved just in the time that I've known them."

"THIS is improved?" Ken asked incredulously. "He couldn't even eat without Omi ordering him to, Youji!"

The playboy grimaced. "Yeah, well, he's regressed a lot," he admitted. "I've NEVER seen him this bad. I suspect it's the stress of the attack, feeling like he failed Schuldig by not being able to prevent or stop the kidnapping, and now being totally adrift without his Master to give him orders. He's scared, and uncertain, and he's reacting to it by wanting somebody to tell him what to do so he doesn't have to think, and so that he's not responsible for any decisions that turn out to be wrong."

"Now," he continued, rounding on Aya. "Given the conclusions Ken has jumped to, knowing what a soft heart he has, and knowing how bad YOUR temper can be, I'm going to take a wild guess that you're the one who drove Nagi off." Guilt crept back into Aya's expression, and Youji nodded grimly. "Let's get one thing straight right now. Nagi was born a slave, and he's been a pet all his life. He wasn't 'conditioned' into this state... he just never learned to think for himself in the first place. He will obey, to the LETTER, anything even vaguely resembling an order from someone more dominant than he is - which is to say, just about everybody in the fucking world. And when he's as bad as he is now, he also takes everything literally. If you told him to jump off a cliff, he'd run and find the nearest one and do exactly that, no questions asked. So if he ran off, it's because something YOU said made him think you wanted him gone. What did you say to him, Aya?"

"I... asked him what right he thought he had to come to us for help," Aya replied reluctantly. "I don't remember exactly what I said... I was too angry to think straight."

"Great," Youji said, sighing and leaning against the wall, crossing his arms. "That means we have no idea what 'orders' he thinks you gave him." He glared at the swordsman. "The moment he wakes up, you'd better be up there apologizing to him and telling him that you've changed your mind and you DON'T want him to pay attention to what you said before. Otherwise he'll just do this again, more than likely." "Can't you just order him not to listen to Aya?" Ken asked, startled. Youji shook his head.

"Nagi's had enough experience with me to know that I'm pretty laid back; frankly, other than the fact that I'm definitely NOT a submissive, I don't come across as much of a Dom, either. Aya comes off as a lot more dominant than I do, especially when he's pissed off. Nagi follows Omi's orders because he loves him, and he'll follow my orders mostly because he respects me; he'll follow Aya's 'orders' because he's terrified of the consequences for disobeying."

"All those scars," Ken said, clueing in. "Those were... punishments for disobedience?" The soccer player looked sick.

"Not from Schuldig," Youji said quietly. "He hasn't been punished that way since Crawford first rescued him. But yes, those are the results of his previous Masters' handiwork. Some of the people who had him as a child make the worst of our targets look like innocent school kids." He turned to Aya again. "Whatever grudges you carry for Schwartz, however much you feel betrayed by Omi and I right now... do NOT take it out on Nagi. He's no more responsible for his actions than if he'd had a gun held to his head the entire time. He literally cannot say 'no' to an order. In some ways, he's an innocent in the truest sense of the word."

Aya nodded grudgingly. "I already promised Ken that I would try not to blame him," he said. "If what you're saying is true, and I'm starting to believe you, then you're right. None of this is his fault." He sighed, and the customary cold harshness dropped away from his expression, leaving behind weariness and more guilt. "I'll apologize to him as soon as he wakes up, if you think it will help and not hurt more."

Youji nodded, a bit surprised by the sudden transformation. Ken moved to take the redhead's hand, squeezing it lightly, and Aya gave him a small smile in return. _So this is what Aya's like without the masks,_ Youji realized. _Maybe I can understand what Ken sees in him after all._

"I'm going upstairs to check on them," he said. "I'll call your cell as soon as he wakes up, so leave it on."

Aya and Ken both nodded, and Youji turned to walk up the spiral staircase. He glanced back once, just as he reached the top, and saw Ken reach out and pull an unresisting Aya into a tight embrace. Sighing, he closed the door behind him and went to seek out his own boyfriend and their sometimes-lover, hoping to offer and receive the same comfort and reassurance that everything would turn out all right in the end.

 

* * *

Ken sighed, leaning his head against Aya's shoulder. In the end, there was nothing that could ever compare to being held in the arms of his lover. "God, we really fucked up, didn't we?" he said ruefully after they'd stood in silence for a long moment.

"Apparently," Aya agreed reluctantly. "I was angry... I suppose I DID intend to drive him away... but I didn't intend for it to happen this way."

"Omi said his heart had stopped at least once," Ken pointed out unhappily. "If the reports are to believed, the explosion he caused was MASSIVE... I wonder what set him off? He really did a number, on himself and everything around him, apparently."

"For all we know he was attacked again," Aya said, but he didn't sound convinced of his own words. After a moment he sighed. "No, he probably wasn't. They would have blocked his powers again. This is all my doing."

"I'm as much to blame as you are, Aya," Ken chided him. "I jumped to conclusions about him... and then instead of telling you, I went off to the back to try to cool down. I know your temper, and your obsession with hating anyone involved in hurting your sister - I never should have left you alone with him. Especially after what I'd realized about how fragile he was."

Aya held him a little tighter, leaning down to bury his face in Ken's hair. "This has been a lot to take in, for both of us. I'm still not sure how I feel about all of this... but I know I no longer truly believe Nagi is to blame for any of it."

"Well, then you're about in the same place I am," Ken observed wryly. "This whole mess makes me edgy. I really don't like the way Youji ordered Omi like that... and Omi just lowered his head and obeyed him. I mean, Omi's our leader... how can we trust in his authority if Youji can control him that much? Christ, how much influence can Schuldig exert on him, if he's the one whose collar it is that Omi wears?" Ken shook his head. "And this submissive behaviour really just doesn't seem like Omi, no matter what they say."

Aya stroked his shoulders with one hand. "There's nothing we can do for now. And if you keep ranting," he added sardonically, "you're going to get us both worked up again. The last thing we need to do right now is work ourselves into a frenzy and barge into Omi's room demanding more explanations. It can wait until morning, at least for now."

"Yeah, you're right." Ken sighed and blew his bangs out of his eyes. "I just can't stop thinking about it. It's driving me nuts. I love Omi like a little brother, I can't stand to think of him getting hurt like that."

Aya shifted against him, and lowered his head further, until his lips were brushing Ken's ear. "I guess I'll just have to find a way to distract you," he murmured, making Ken shiver.

"Mmm... God, Ran..." Ken groaned. The redhead knew his weak points far too well. "I love you," he breathed out as Aya went for his neck. "No matter what else happens, at least we'll always have each other."

"Always," the swordsman echoed against Ken's skin. "I love you too, Ken. Come on... let's go find our own bed."

 

* * *

Lukas was starting to feel lightheaded and dizzy. They'd both sank down to sit on the floor of the cells some time ago, but they were still holding hands through the bars. He'd put everything he had into the shields; he'd never held such an incredibly dense shield for so long before. Whatever else had happened to him during the years he was missing, his powers had gotten a lot stronger - which was frightening in and of itself.

He was gasping for air, sweat streaming down his face as he clutched at his old friend's hand. _*Brad... I can't... hold this much longer...*_ he warned his friend. He felt dismay and resignation from the other man.

 _*Don't push yourself too far,*_ Brad commanded him. _*But damn it... I've narrowed it down to two possible futures - one gets us free, and one gets us recaptured and killed. I need to find the key difference!_

Gritting his teeth, Lukas renewed his resolve. _*I can manage another couple minutes,*_ he said, _*But not much more than that. Not and still be conscious or coherent any time within the next week or two.*_

 _*I'm looking as fast as I can... everything is still moving sluggishly... there it is!*_ Brad's mental Voice suddenly sharpened as he focused on the vision. _*Nagi... the difference is Nagi's participation!*_

 _*Somebody else I'm supposed to know?*_ Lukas asked. He felt shock and chagrin from the other man.

 _*Yes, rather,*_ Brad answered. _*He's one of our teammates - I wasn't sure if he'd survived or not until now. He's out there somewhere, and I think he went to Weiss for help, just as we'd hoped he would.*_ Lukas could sense that Brad was hiding something from him, something about the connection between him and this 'Nagi', but he didn't have the power to spare to go hunting for what it was. _*If we can use your connection to him to reach past this damnable shield and contact him, that will give him an idea of where we are. That will make the difference between our escape and recapture.*_

 _*I can't contact somebody I don't know!*_ Lukas pointed out desperately, feeling the last of his powers sliding away from him. It was going to be now or never... _*I have no idea what his mind feels like, so I won't be able to find him!*_

 _*Your connection to him is strong enough that you should be able to follow it back to him regardless,*_ Brad said. Lukas was shocked; the only way he could have formed a connection as deep as the one Brad was talking about was if he'd spent a LOT of time alone in this person's presence, willingly opened his mind to create the merge... or both. He couldn't even begin to imagine trusting anybody that much, except possible Brad himself.

He looked deep inside his mind, searching down into the subconscious level where such a link would be formed. He found it, a wire-thin thread stretching from his mind into the distance. He touched it hesitantly, tried to follow it back, and found that he couldn't harmonize with the resonance of it.

 _*I found it... but I can't USE it,*_ he said helplessly. _*The way I think right now is too different from the way I thought when I created it... maybe if I knew the person it links to, I'd be able to follow it anyway, but I don't.*_

 _*I do,*_ Brad said after a moment of agonized deliberation that Lukas could sense. _*Do you trust me enough to let me that deep into your mind? It will mean creating a similar connection between the two of us - we won't be able to close it once it's opened, you know that.*_

Now it was Lukas' turn to debate with himself. If Brad had asked him that question four years ago - or however the hell long ago it was that Lukas had been fourteen - he wouldn't have hesitated. But now... a connection that close meant that, once this blocking field was gone, Brad would have access to his mind no matter how hard he shielded his thoughts. The precognitive was a strong enough telepath to find the memories Lukas would rather die than have him know about... the memories of what Emmanuel had done to him, of what he had become under the influence of the older telepath.

But if it was their only way out of this mess... Lukas didn't particularly want to be somebody's captive pet telepath, either. They might never get another chance at this; their captors would almost certainly realize what he'd done to get around their block, and then there would be no hope for it.

 _*All right,*_ he said at last. _*I trust you. Just... please, Brad, don't hate me for what I've become.*_

Before the precognitive could ask what he'd meant by that, he threw open his mind to the other man, drawing him inside, merging their thoughts until it was difficult to tell where any given thought had originated. For the moment Lukas was still able to keep his dirty secret hidden; they had precious little time, and Brad was focused on accomplishing their objective. He led the other man to the link, burning a new path in his mind as he went, filling the gap with Brad's essence. They were tied now in a way that was unbreakable, beyond conscious control, and they would never be able to escape each other again.

 _*There,*_ he said, mental Voice wavering as he began to lose control. He let go of some of the outermost shields, sacrificing clarity for time. _*Hurry!*_

Brad touched the link, and through his connection to Lukas he was able to utelize it. He too resonated against the link's 'frequency', but he knew the person on the other end of it well enough to match thoughts regardless. _*NAGI!*_ the precognitive sent with all the strength of mind he could muster. They didn't know where they were, or how far away Nagi might be - Lukas' range was wide, but not infinite. _*NAGI! CAN YOU HEAR ME?*_

 

* * *

Omi was sitting back against the wall on his bed, Nagi cradled against his chest, when the telekinetic's eyes suddenly flew open and he bolted upright. "Schuldig!" the boy cried. "CRAWFORD!"


	7. Chapter 7

"Schuldig! CRAWFORD!"

Omi nearly had a heart attack when Nagi suddenly bolted upright and screamed out his teammates' names. "Nagi! What is it? Are you okay?"

Nagi's eyes had gone wide, and for a moment Omi thought he was trapped in a nightmare... but then he recognized the 'listening'looke people often got when they were communicating telepathically. _Schu?_ he tried projecting as loudly as he could. _Schuldig, can you hear me? Are you okay?_

He listened hard, trying to keep the thoughts in his mind quiet, but there was no reply. Nagi was still listening intently, and Omi knew from past experience that the younger boy was storing everything that was being said to him in his near-perfect memory. He all but held his breath, not wanting to do anything that might cause Nagi to lose the connection. With any luck, having this chance to talk to his Master would stabilize the boy somewhat.

Finally Nagi slumped back against him again, blue eyes dazed. "What did Schu say?" Omi asked him gently. Nagi shook his head.

"It wasn't Schuldig," he croaked, his voice hoarse as if he'd been screaming for a long time. "I mean... it WAS, but it was Crawford talking to me, using Schuldig as a boosting point."

Omi frowned. If Schuldig was capable of reaching Nagi, why hadn't he talked to the telekinetic himself? Why have Crawford do it through him? "Maybe it was taking all his concentration just to reach you," he finally offered. Nagi brightened slightly; as Omi had suspected, the telekinetic had been afraid that his Master hadn't spoken to him because he'd done something to displease the telepath. "Or maybe they didn't have much time, and Crawford needed to relay the instructions to you directly. What did he tell you?"

Nagi tried to sit up again, but went very white and fell back again, clutching at his chest. Frightened, Omi supported him, remembering what he'd concluded about Nagi's condition. "Nagi? Are you okay, Liebe?"

"I... I'll be... okay..." the boy gasped after a moment, though he still looked horribly pale. "I s-stopped my heart... then I used my powers to jumpstart it, but I lost control, and the overload stopped it again, I think. I don't remember."

"You STOPPED your HEART?" Omi repeated, incredulous, just as Youji walked through the door. "Nagi, why on earth would you do that?"

"Is it because of what Aya said to you?" Youji asked, and Omi looked up, eyes narrowed. Nagi hesitated, then nodded slowly. "He didn't mean it," Youji said, coming to sit next to Omi on the bed. He shifted Nagi so the boy was cradled between them, and Nagi settled in with a sigh. "You have to remember that not everybody knows you take things literally, Liebchen. He's sorry, and he wants to apologize. I'll call him to let him know you're awake..."

"Not yet," Omi interjected before Youji could hunt down his phone. "Nagi just got contact from Brad and Schuldig... I want to get the information now, in case he forgets any of it." He knew that wasn't likely, but with the way this week had been going so far, this would be the one time that Nagi actually forgot something.

The colour had started to seep back into Nagi's cheeks. Omi realized that the boy's hands were cold, and curled up a little tighter, sandwiching Nagi between him and Youji and pulling the blankets up over all of them. Within moments his bed was a coccoon of warmth, and the subtle shivering that had been present in Nagi's body since he'd awoken faded away. "Tell me what they said," Omi commanded when he was sure the telekinetic was going to be okay.

"Crawford said they were still being blocked, but they'd managed to find away around it for a few minutes," Nagi recited dutifully. "He said it had something to do with Schuldig's empathy, but he didn't bother to explain it because they didn't have much time before Schuldig would be completely exhausted." He sighed and turned his head to rest on Omi's shoulder. "He said the people who attacked us are NOT from Estet - they're from another group, called the Institute. These are the people who trained him, before he left them to join Estet, and they want revenge on him for betraying them."

"That explains why they just left you and Farfarello to die," Youji observed, and Omi nodded. "But why take Schuldig, if that's the case?"

Nagi shook his head, but Omi closed his eyes, trying to remember something. "Didn't Schu once say that he thought Crawford might have known him from before he had amnesia?" he said slowly. "And didn't he say something about how it seemed like he'd been trained to fight when he first woke up - that if he just relaxed and didn't think about it, his body did the work for him?"

"That's right," Nagi agreed, startled. "He doesn't talk about it much - he says he doesn't like to think about that time."

"So is it possible that Schuldig was also originally trained by these people, left, and then got amnesia?" Omi persisted. "That would explain why they took both of them."

"Sounds reasonable," Youji agreed. "The question is, what are we going to do about it? If they're not from Estet, that means they have no reason to go after US; which is both a good thing and a bad thing. It means we don't have to worry about being attacked out of nowhere, but it also means Ken and Aya aren't going to have as much motivation to help us."

Omi looked grim. "They're going to help us if I have to tie them up and drag them along behind us. Especially after this afternoon."

"I'm sorry," Nagi whispered, shoulders shaking again. "I didn't mean to cause trouble. I should never have come here..."

Omi and Youji both dropped kisses on his head. "Of course you should have," Youji said firmly. "It was absolutely the right decision to make. One of the hardest lessons in life, kiddo, is that sometimes even the right decision has negative consequences."

"I'd much rather have you here safe, and us helping to look for Schuldig, than to have you wandering around out there on your own," Omi agreed. "We love you, Nagi, and we WANT to help you, even if it makes trouble for us sometimes. That's what friendship and love is all about, Liebe."

"I love you, too," Nagi replied almost inaudibly. "But I don't want to stay here... I want to go home!" Both white hunters knew very well that 'home' to Nagi meant anywhere that Schuldig was, rather than a physical location. They hugged him tight.

"We'll get you home," Omi promised. "Now we know they're both alive, and not even too far away. I was worried that they might have been taken out of the country; but so long as they're anywhere in Japan, we WILL find them eventually."

"Did Crawford say anything else?" Youji asked. "Anything about their location?"

Nagi thought hard. "He said he didn't know where they were being held. But... I got a visual impression, from Schuldig, I think. Bars on a cage..."

"A cage?" Omi repeated. "They're keeping them caged? That seems... odd..."

"Was there anything in the cage with them?" Youji prodded. "Don't try to force the memory, just close your eyes and remember what it looked like."

"They weren't together," Nagi said after a long moment. "They were reaching through the bars to hold hands so they could link... they couldn't see each other. Um... because there were walls on three sides. And... a bed, I think, and a basin. And... there were lots more bars outside..."

"That sounds like a prison of some kind," Omi said. He stretched out his leg, straining with his toes, and at last hooked the strap of his laptop off the floor. He dragged it towards him, and positioned it so they could all see the screen while he typed one handed. "From what I found today, the attackers both came from and left Tokyo to the northwest," he said, struggling to bring up a map of the area while one hand was tucked around Nagi.

His laptop beeped, then screens started to fly past. He hovered his hand over the keyboard for a moment, shocked, before realizing that Nagi was using his powers to control it. "You can use your powers again already?" he said, amazed. "I thought you told me that after you exhaust yourself, you have to rest for a long time before using them again."

Nagi was pale and sweating again, but there was a determined look on his face. "Gebieter can't wait for me to take time to recover," he said firmly. "I'll be okay. Look, here... there's an abandoned prison complex a couple of hours outside the city. That would be right on the edge of Schuldig's range, but he COULD project back here to me if he tried hard enough."

Omi and Youji traded surprised looks over Nagi's head. This was the most forceful either of them had ever heard the boy, and it was a radical turnaround from his earlier increased dependence. Omi would have thought that this newest traumatic experience would have driven the pet further into his shell, but apparently it had created just the opposite effect. "That would explain why he didn't talk to you, and why he didn't bring me into the connection," Omi agreed. He would worry about the reasons behind Nagi's sudden turnaround later. For now, they needed his help, quite frankly. "It was taking everything he had just to reach you."

Youji frowned. "I would have thought that relaying Crawford would take MORE effort than just talking to you himself," he said, and Omi glared at him as Nagi looked crestfallen again.

"We're not telepaths... how should we know what is and isn't more difficult?" Omi sallied back, rubbing Nagi's shoulders soothingly. "Maybe it takes more effort, but less concentration, who knows? Whatever the reason, we're now a HELL of a lot closer to finding them than we were an hour ago." He nodded at the computer screen. "Given what Nagi sensed, and what I discovered, they're almost certainly being kept at that old prison complex."

"Let's go," Nagi said excitedly, starting to worm his way off the bed. "They're waiting for us!"

"Whoah, hold on there," Youji said, catching his arm gently. "First of all, you're in no shape to be going anywhere. Second of all, the four of us are exhausted from looking for YOU all night. If we go out there now, without resting and planning first, we might as well just hand ourselves over to these guys."

"Youji is right," Omi agreed reluctantly. "Believe me, Liebe, I want to rescue him nearly as much as you do, but if we go off half-cocked we won't be helping anybody. They'll still be there in the morning, and we'll have a much better chance of rescuing them after we've recovered."

Nagi looked torn, but finally he nodded. "Okay," he said softly, settling in again. The lights went out abruptly, and Omi's laptop shut off. "Then we should go to sleep now, so we'll be recovered faster," he insisted when Omi and Youji made startled noises.

Youji chuckled, and tugged both the boys into a tight hug as he slid down to snuggle into the narrow bed. There was barely enough room for the three of them - a tight squeeze, but in some ways that made it more comforting. "I'll sleep to that," the playboy said. "Sleep well, you two... tomorrow we've got some ass-kicking to do."

 

* * *

Nagi woke slowly, his body loudly protesting his return to consciousness. Everything hurt, and his head was pounding with the worst headache he'd ever had in his life. Morosely, he reflected that maybe he should have just waited for Omi to slowly type everything into the laptop after all; using his powers that way right after exhausting them might not have been the smartest thing he'd ever done. But he was so desperate to find Schuldig, any delay seemed unbearable.

Mentally he thanked whatever hitherto unknown stubborn part of him had kept him from committing suicide yesterday. Schuldig was ALIVE... alive and well, and he needed Nagi to rescue him.

 _He... needs me,_ the telekinetic thought to himself wonderingly, turning the thought over in his mind. Oh, the German had said often enough that he 'needed' Nagi, but that had been in terms of 'I need you in order to be happy.' Now it was a case of 'I need you in order to survive.'

 _Schuldig needs me. Crawford needs me. Only I can do this._ Nagi knew that was true. He needed the help of Weiss, because he couldn't do it on his own; but neither could they face such powerful psychics without help from another powerful psychic. Granted that these people had been able to block Nagi once before, but they had caught him by surprise then. Hopefully this time he would be catching them by surprise. And even if they DID manage to block him, he knew the common weak points of psychic powers, and how to defeat them. Weiss just didn't have that kind of knowledge, despite their experience with Estet.

 _Schuldig needs me. Crawford needs me. Weiss needs me._ It was an oddly empowering knowledge... that they needed him, that they were depending on him... it meant he couldn't afford to fail. More than that, he couldn't afford to hesitate. If he was going to do this, then he had to DO it... no questions asked, no waiting for orders, or it might be too late. It had taken Schuldig and Crawford a long time to train him to be able to handle himself in a fight without needing direct orders for every move he made, but even now he still clung to the outline they gave him before any battle. Crawford's precognition had allowed him to give Nagi detailed enough guildelines to get through the fights in one piece. Weiss didn't have that ability... if they had to guide him, he would only be a liability to them, and they couldn't afford that.

 _I have to do this... on my own,_ he realized. The thought sent spasms of terror through him, making him want to bury himself in a deep dark hole and never come out again. What if he screwed up? What if he made the wrong decision? What if he made the RIGHT decision, and it still turned out wrong, like Youji had said last night? Worse, what if he got out there, and THEN froze, unable to think for himself at the critical moment? He might get them all killed, or worse.

But if he didn't try, then Weiss would be all but guaranteed to fail. Schuldig and Crawford would remain captive, would probably be moved, and he would never see his Master again. Of the two options - having to make his own decisions, or never again feeling Schuldig's loving prescence in his mind - Nagi knew which one frightened him more.

"Then I just have to do it," he said aloud, opening his eyes. He was alone in Omi's bed - the pillow on the left side of him was still faintly warm, but the right side was cold. Judging by the sunlight streaming in through the window, it was late in the morning; Omi had probably gotten up early to plan, and Youji most likely had lazed in bed for a few more hours before getting up to join him. Probably the bedroom door closing behind Youji was what had drawn Nagi from his sleep in the first place.

He sat up, the blankets sliding off him into a heap on the floor beside the bed. His head still hurt almost too much to think. He glanced around. Omi was a hacker, and Nagi knew for a fact that the older boy spent long hours at his computer. Nagi also knew from experience that staring at the screen for hours at a time brought on plenty of headaches. So... if Omi sat THERE, where would he probably keep his painkillers?

He found the two most likely drawers, and hesitated before opening them. Omi had told him to 'make himself at home'... but hadn't specifically said that he could touch anything...

"Are you going to do this or not?" he asked himself crossly. Reaching out before he could think too hard about it, he opened one of the drawers. He started to reach inside, then realized how badly his hand was shaking and sat down at the desk instead, gasping for breath. What if Omi was angry with him for touching the other boy's things? What if he got into trouble?

 _Rescuing Schuldig is more important than making sure Omi is pleased with me,_ he realized after a moment's thought. _I can't help Schuldig while suffering from a reaction headache. So I need painkillers more than I need to please Omi._

Really, when it came right down to it, it was all about priorities. Nagi was amazed at himself. Schuldig had talked to him before about situations where the 'ends justified the means', but he hadn't understood what the telepath had meant at the time. Now he did... the 'end' of rescuing Schuldig justified the 'means' of possibly upsetting Omi... even of breaking any orders that prevented him from doing what needed to be done to help the German telepath.

Everyone had always told him that he needed to make more decisions for himself. But it wasn't really about the decisions, Nagi saw now. It was about figuring out what was important to you. After that, the answers to the decisions were obvious... and it didn't MATTER what the consequences were, because you did what you had to do in order to achieve your priorities.

Could it really be that simple? Was this how ordinary people lived their lives? No wonder decisions were so easy to them. Now, if Nagi could just hold to this, remember the way he felt right now, then maybe he would be okay after all.

"I can do this," he said to himself, wondering. "I can really do this." He looked into the drawer, and as he'd suspected he found a couple of bottles of varying strengths of painkillers. He picked up the bottle that had the strongest kind that wouldn't also knock him out, and swallowed a couple of them dry. His hand was still shaking, but his resolve had firmed.

He put the bottle away and closed the drawer, standing and padding to the bedroom doorway. It was time to go out and find out what the plans were, and make sure he was included in them. He wavered a bit at the idea of actually telling someone ELSE that he wasn't going to listen to their orders, but kept an image of Schuldig at the forefront of his mind to remind him why he was doing this.

He opened the door and moved down the hallway, but paused just before he came in sight of the living room. Omi and Youji were out there talking - no, they were arguing, Nagi realized, eyes wide. He plastered himself against the wall, trying to decide whether he should go back into the bedroom. Making his own decisions was one thing. Walking into the middle of someone else's fight was another matter entirely.

"Give me one good reason why I should fogive what you did," Omi demanded angrily. Nagi couldn't remember ever hearing the older boy so furious. "We had an agreement, Youji, and you broke that. Unless somehow I just MISSED the fact that I was actually wearing my collar last night."

"You weren't and you know it," Youji replied, sounding defensive. Nagi's eyes widened further; listening to them, if he hadn't known better, he'd have thought that OMI was the Dom and Youji was his sub, not the other way around. "Yes, I broke our agreement, all right? Will you stop yelling at me long enough to LET me explain?"

"I'm not yelling," Omi bit back, which was true. Neither of them had raised their voices, though the intensity imbued in the words made it SEEM like they were being shouted. Presumably they hadn't wanted to wake Nagi up. "And yes, you can explain. But this had better be good, Youji."

Youji sighed. "You were about to lose your temper and blow up and Ken and Aya. You're too close to Nagi - too emotionally involved to think straight about the issue. YES, they needed to be chewed out, but if you'd done what I know you were planning to, we'd have a hell of a lot bigger problems now. You're our leader, you're supposed to stay unbiased, remember? We have enough issues with the fact that I'm your lover."

"And how do you think it affected my authority for them to see me give way to you like that?" Omi retaliated. "What's to stop them from thinking that you don't do that ALL the time - that you're actually leading Weiss, and I'm just a puppet, and they never knew it? For gods' sakes, Youji, they're already nervous about the whole thing. Now we're going to have to convince them all over again that Schuldig hasn't 'conditioned' me into being completely submissive, all the time."

"We'll deal with it when it comes up," Youji replied. "Look, I'm sorry, all right? But it was the only way I could think of to get you out of there without getting into exactly the argument I was trying to avoid."

"And you're telling me that you didn't chew them out after I left?"

"Of course I did!" Youji said. "But I didn't blow up at them, and I'm not in any kind of authority over them. That kind of thing is easier to take from a teammate than a leader sometimes, Omi. I managed to talk some sense into both of them, and they'll realize pretty quickly that I'm not secretly controlling you. If you had yelled at them the way you wanted to, they'd just have gotten defensive, especially Aya... and it would have ended with them refusing to help us any further."

There was a long pause, and finally Omi sighed. "Maybe you're right," he agreed reluctantly. "But damn it, Youji, if you EVER do something like that again, it's over. Understand me?" Youji made a startled exclamation. There was the sound of soft footsteps, then rustling fabric. "I love you, always. I'm not talking about breaking up with you. But if I can't trust you to stick to your agreements when I HAVE a choice to refuse, how can I trust you when I'm helpless?"

"It won't happen again, I promise," Youji replied. His voice was oddly muffled, and Nagi peeked cautiously around the corner to see why. Omi was curled up on Youji's lap, and the taller man had buried his face in Omi's neck as they embraced. "You're right, I shouldn't have done it that way. I'm sorry."

"Apology accepted," Omi said softly. "And no harm done... this time. Now... much as I hate to wake Nagi, we need to get moving and I don't want him to wake up alone."

"I'm awake," Nagi said, making both of them jump. He stood hesitantly in the doorway. "I'm sorry... I didn't want to interrupt."

"Nagi!" Omi exclaimed, jumping up and crossing the room to his side. "You shouldn't be out of bed... you had a major shock to your system yesterday, Liebe. You could have just called for us."

Nagi shook his head. "We need to go rescue Schuldig and Crawford. I want to come with you."

"No, Nagi," Omi replied softly but firmly. "You're in no shape for a mission. I want you to stay here and rest... we'll bring Schuldig back to you, I PROMISE."

He almost broke... given an order that clear, it was hard to bring himself to remember what he'd decided, back in the bedroom. "N-no," he finally forced out, feeling as if the air in the room weighed several tons. "No, I'm going too. You need my help."

The two white hunters traded startled looks, and Youji stood. "Liebe, you're staying here. That's an order. We'll manage without you."

"But we're very, VERY proud of you for sticking to that decision!" Omi added quickly. "Gebieter will be so pleased when we tell him."

It was easier the second time, Nagi discovered. "No. I'm going. You can't stop me." They both stared at him in utter shock.

"All right, who are you and what have you done with Naoe Nagi?" Youji finally asked weakly. Omi shot him a dark look, and the playboy shrugged. "I'm serious. We know we're up against psychics, Omi... what if they rearranged his mind?"

"I'm s-still me," Nagi insisted. "But I'm going with you. You NEED me... Gebieter needs me. You don't know how to fight psychics." Seeing that they were still going to refuse, he added with a reserve of stubborness he hadn't known he possessed, "If you leave me behind, I'll steal a car and follow you. You can't keep me here... unless you knock me out, you know you can't force me to stay anywhere."

Omi continued to gape at him, jaw dropping in shock. "You... I..." he stammered, clearly stymied. Finally he shook his head helplessly. "All right," he agreed.

"Omi!" Youji exclaimed, giving him a disbelieving look.

"What?" Omi replied. "What am I supposed to do? Drug him? Not after the mess his system went through last night. And he's right, unless we knock him out, we can't force him to stay. I mean, what are we going to do, lock him in? Tie him up?"

Youji had to concede the futility of those ideas. He looked at the two of them. "You sure you want to do this, Liebe? It's going to be a nasty fight, and we aren't going to have time to take care of you. You'll be on your own for the most part."

It was clear to Nagi that the playboy was hoping that prospect would prove too daunting for the former pet. But he shook his head. "No. It's okay, I know that. I'm going anyway. I'll be okay."

"Nagi... there's one thing I want you to understand," Omi warned him. "In the field, *I* am the leader, and you will take orders from me. Forget about the fact that I'm a submissive - my orders are to be obeyed instantly and without question, understand? If you can't agree to that, if you don't think you can see me that way, then I WILL drug you to keep you here if I have to."

It only took a moment for Nagi to decide. "Yes. I can do that," he agreed. "You... you're not... ACTING like a submissive."

"I'm not, not when it comes to missions," Omi said, giving him a small smile. "All right... Youji, you get the two of you a quick breakfast, then take him down to the mission room and fit him with the spare transmitter and show him how to use it. I'll go get Ken-kun and Aya-kun and fill them in on the plan." His blues eyes glittered with a determination that made Nagi's hopes rise. "Let's show them what happens when you mess with Weiss and Schwartz."


	8. Chapter 8

Brad nearly cried out when he suddenly lost his visions again. Once again he was wrapped in the stifling blindness caused by whatever was blocking them. The hand in his went limp, and he knew Lukas had passed out from the strain of trying to hold the shields.

Lukas... it really was Lukas, not Schuldig. He had changed from the boy Brad had known; become more jaded and cynical. But then again, considering his life, that was only to be expected, really. Brad knew there was something Lukas was trying to hide from him, something that had happened to him since Brad had left the Institute, but for the moment it wasn't important. They would sort it out once they were free of this mess, and Brad would reassure Lukas that NOTHING could cause him to think less of the German telepath.

He still wasn't entirely sure how he felt about what had happened. On the one hand, this was a chance he had never expected to have... a chance to be with the man he had loved since they were both children. Lukas remembered him now, remembered their bond, remembered their promise. He DIDN'T remember the horrible things Brad had done to drive him together with Nagi...

But there was the crux of the problem. Nagi. The telekinetic was utterly dependent on Schuldig, and would be devastated without him. Lukas had no memories of Nagi, or his relationship with the Japanese boy. Never mind the rest of the telepath's tangled love-life with Weiss; Bombay and Balinese at least would be able to adjust to the change and move on. It might very well kill Nagi to lose his beloved Gebieter.

Without his powers, there was no way to KNOW the best path to take. If only there was a way for his old friend to be both Lukas AND Schuldig, but it didn't seem to be possible.

Once they had their powers back, there was a chance that he would be able to reverse what Emmanuel had done. But could he bring himself to do it? Once before he'd voluntarily given up Lukas, and he'd been suffering alone ever since, watching his friend's happiness with Nagi. Knowing the pain that was waiting for him on the other side, could he deliberately erase Lukas from Schuldig's mind once more?

Did he have a choice? They'd already lost Farfarello, he'd gotten that much from Nagi. The Irishman wasn't a devastating loss to Schwartz; but losing Nagi would be. And Brad had come to genuinely care for the telekinetic over the years, he didn't want to hurt Nagi now. Nagi trusted them to take care of him, to protect him from harm, and Brad had already failed him once, deliberately. He didn't think he could do it again.

He didn't realize he was falling asleep until he toppled over onto his side on the floor, losing his grip on Lukas' hand. The fall woke him, but only barely... he was drained and exhausted after straining to use his powers, and then straining again to reach Nagi through Lukas. They would both be useless until they slept it off.

Reluctantly Brad stood and staggered to the narrow cot, wishing there was some way he could get Lukas into bed as well. The telepath would be stiff and sore after sleeping slumped over on the cold concrete floor, but there was nothing Brad could do about it.

With a last glance at the wall that blocked Lukas from his view, Brad tumbled into the bed and passed out cold.

If he dreamt, he didn't remember it aftewards, save for vague impressions of horror and fear. They might have been his own nightmares; they might have been Lukas', echoing down to him through their new bond. Either way, Brad came awake abruptly, the sound of menacing footsteps still ringing in his ears.

"Brad!" hissed Lukas from the other cell. "Wake up! They're coming!" The precognitive realized that the footsteps were real, not a lingering product of his dreams, and he scrambled to his feet. Their captors were returning... presumably Emmanuel wanted to see if his efforts had been successful. Brad moved to the front of the cell, clutching the bars, eyes narrowed behind his glasses.

The Greek telepath came into view of Brad's cell first; he passed the precognitive by as if totally unaware of the American's presence. The young child still followed behind him, with the same blank expression as before. Brad felt disoriented for a moment, before he got hold of himself. He realized that the low-level link to Lukas, active despite the fact that the telepath was no longer shielding, had been cut off. He looked at the child with renewed interest. Could this be the source of the block? A sort of anti-psychic, as it were? And the ability got stronger with proximity?

"Lukas," the older telepath purred when he stopped in front of the German's cell. "I'm glad to see you're awake and well."

"Em-emmanuel..." Lukas stammered, and Brad heard him backing up away from the bars. The precognitive frowned; he'd expected Lukas to be defiant and brash, or possibly just subdued by the fact that he was facing his Instructor... but the German sounded terrified. "Jesus Christ, Brad, you didn't tell me it was the INSTITUTE that had captured us!"

"Ah, good," Emmanuel said, all but purring like a satisfied cat. "Your memories have been properly restored. It was quite distressing to discover that you had forgotten me, Lukas."

"For THAT, I'd pay money to have amnesia," Lukas muttered. "Got away from you, did I? I bet that must have pissed you off to no end."

Brad frowned. Obviously there was bad blood between student and Instructor; as the advanced telepath Instructor, Emmanuel would have had quite a bit of contact with Lukas. What had happened to set them at odds? He hadn't realized this capture was anything other than simple revenge on two rogue agents.

Emmanuel looked infuriated by the younger telepath's words. "Yes, you escaped me once, but you won't do so again. You belong to me, Lukas, and soon you'll owe your life to me as well. I am the only one who can convince the Council to spare your life."

"I'd rather die than do anything for you, ever again," Lukas spat, enraging Emmanuel more. Brad kept quiet, eyes wide. Yes, there was unmistakeably something going on here that he didn't know about, and without his powers he was afraid to interfere for fear of changing the tenuous future he'd seen in which they had been rescued by Nagi and Weiss.

"Is that so," the Greek man hissed, eyes narrowed dangerously. "That can be arranged, you know. But I think I have found something that will persuade you more effectively." He pulled out a gun, and levelled it - not at Lukas, but at Brad.

"No!" Lukas shouted as Brad tensed, automatically trying to see into the future to predict where the bullet would strike him so he could move out of the way. All he succeeded in doing was giving himself another headache. "No, you fucking bastard! Don't you fucking touch him, or I swear to God I will kill you myself!"

"Then obey me, and he'll live a while longer," Emmanuel replied. "You know what I expect, Lukas. Refuse me, and you will both die as slowly and agonizingly as is humanly possible - and I will make sure that he goes first, and that the block is lifted just enough to allow you to feel every moment of his suffering. Do you understand me?"

Lukas swore in a bastardized mix of English and German. "Don't, Lukas," Brad cautioned him in a voice that remained steady, despite his nervousness at facing a gun in the hands of a man who hated him while he was without his powers to save him. "He's going to kill us both anyway, don't give him what he wants."

There was a shattering explosion, and for a moment Brad thought he might actually have gone deaf. He stood there, stunned, as sound finally returned to him over the ringing in his ears. "...ad, Brad, are you okay? Fucking hell, you fucking BASTARD, WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM?" Lukas was shouting.

"I'm all right, Lukas," Brad replied, and this time his voice DID shake. Turning slightly, he saw the hole in the wall where the bullet had buried itself, just an inch to the left of his head. He glanced at Emmanuel, who looked back at him with the cold eyes of a snake. "I'm fine, he didn't hit me."

"Just a warning shot," the older telepath agreed amicably. "The next one will be to a non-vital area; something which will hurt a great deal, but not endanger his life. A kneecap, perhaps, or the groin. You have ten seconds to decide, Lukas."

"God damn it all to fucking hell!" the German exclaimed. "All right, you win, God damn you. I'll do what you want. I'm yours. Satisfied?"

"Not yet... but I'm sure I will be shortly," Emmanuel purred. He tucked his gun into the hands of his little anti-psychic, who stood passively holding it out of reach of Brad or Lukas. Then he stepped up to Lukas' cell, one hand dropping to his belt. "Let's see how much skill you still retain, shall we?"

Brad's hands clenched the bars hard nearly hard enough to dent them as he finally realized what was going on. "If you lay one finger on him," he promised in a low voice, "I swear that Schwartz will hunt you down and destroy you. We will make what you're threatening me with look like child's play."

"This assumes you live more than another few hours," Emmanuel sneered back as he unzipped his fly. Brad couldn't see the details of what was happening, but he didn't need to. After an initial gagging noise from Lukas, the soft sounds of sucking told him everything he needed to know.

So THIS was what the telepath had been trying to hide from him, the secret he had feared would be exposed with the creation of the link between them. Emmanuel had been abusing him, using his position as an Instructor to force Lukas to be his sex toy. It disgusted Brad, but not in the way that Emmanuel had probably convinced Lukas it would; the idea of anybody taking advantage of someone under their protection in such a way had always disgusted him, and always would. It was one of the reasons it had been so difficult for him to do what he'd needed to do to drive Schuldig and Nagi together.

At last Emmanuel's breathing sped up as he came with a cry, and Brad heard Lukas coughing roughly. He hissed through his teeth, seething with anger but unable to do anything. At this point all he could do was wait until Emmanuel had left, and then try to talk it out with Lukas. And when they got out of here, Brad was going to make sure a special level of hell was reserved for the molesting asshole - AFTER he had Nagi rip the bastard to shreds pieces by tiny piece.

The older telepath zipped himself up and sauntered out of reach of the bars once more. "Now, I must go to convince the Council to spare your life," he said to Lukas. "It would indeed be a shame to lose such a well-trained toy - I see you have learned new skills since you left me. I shall have to make sure to explore them all."

"One of these days I'm going to bite it off," Lukas replied sourly. Emmanuel laughed.

"Oh yes, please do try. The moment I sense the intention in your mind, I will burn you out so thoroughly there will be nothing left but a vegetable. A very... pretty... vegetable," he added suggestively, stretching out a hand to touch Lukas. The German spat at him, and Brad heard the sound of flesh meeting flesh as the Greek man reached through the bars and slapped the other telepath.

"Fuck you," Lukas rasped, staggering back from the bars. "You God damn son of a bitch, go fuck yourself.

"But I'd much rather fuck you," Emmanuel replied softly. "Now, I must be off. But do not fear, Terri here," he clapped the child on the shoulder, "will still be in the complex. Do enjoy your last hours, Bradley. Be sure to thank Lukas for granting you a relatively merciful death."

Brad clenched his teeth to keep from spitting out the reply he wanted to make. Emmanuel was leaving, probably for quite some time... this was the ideal time for Weiss to rescue them, and he didn't want to say or do anything to jeopardize that future.

Emmanuel left, taking the anti-psychic with him, and Lukas and Brad were left alone once more. Brad tried several times to say something, only to find that he didn't know what to say - platititudes would have been beyond ridiculous, and might only have hurt Lukas more.

"Well, now you know the truth," Lukas finally said, his voice dull and hopeless. "I'm nothing more than his fucking whore."

"If you truly believe that, then you're right," Brad said coolly. If he was lucky, he would be able to shock Lukas out of his apathy. If he'd guessed wrong, he might very well convince Lukas that he DID believe the younger psychic was somehow soiled by what Emmanuel had forced on him. He prayed he wasn't making the biggest mistake of his life, and once more he cursed the loss of his powers. With them, he'd have been able to see exactly what words to say to achieve the best effect; without them he was shooting in the dark. "All I saw was a man abusing his position and raping someone who had once been in his care; but if you choose to see it differently, that's your decision."

"Don't fucking kid me," Lukas burst out angrily. "Christ, Brad, don't you understand? I've been his fuck-toy since I was fourteen! I never fought him, I never argued... I was too much of a fucking coward! And I..." his voice broke. "I enjoyed it, God damn him. He made me enjoy it. He made me beg him for it."

"He MADE you, Lukas," Brad replied. "That's the key word there. Rape is rape - the fact that you're enough of an empath to be forced to share your rapist's pleasure does not mean that you truly wanted it. Nor does the fact that he frightened you into obeying him make you a coward. I know how much authority the Instructors held over us all - they literally had the power of life and death. What did he threaten you with?"

There was a long pause, and for a moment Brad thought Lukas wasn't going to answer him. "He said that if I objected or refused, he'd tell the other Instructors that I had used my powers against him," the telepath whispered at last. "He said they would burn my mind out. I... I couldn't face that. I couldn't."

"Of course not," the American said gently. He sat in the corner once more, reaching through the bars and offering his hand. Now that the anti-psychic was away from them once more, he could feel a dull throb of pain and despair in the back of his mind, through the connection to Lukas. "You were fourteen years old, Lukas. There is a reason that having sex with someone that young is considered rape even if they agree to it - you were still a child, and he was not only an adult, he was your Instructor. He probably couldn't have actually gotten you killed... all the others would have had to do would be to look inside both your minds, and the truth of the matter would have been known. He wouldn't even have risked the possibility that they might believe you when you said you hadn't done it. But how could you have known that?"

"You can't tell me that you're not disgusted, Brad!" Lukas objected. "I can FEEL it, damn it."

Brad shrugged, though Lukas couldn't see the gesture. "My disgust is aimed entirely at him, Lukas, not you." Sensing that Lukas still didn't believe him, he sighed. "Lukas... when I found you again, when you were eighteen, the situation you were trapped in was far worse than what I've just discovered about what happened to you at the Institute. Far, far worse. It has never changed anything about the way that I've thought of you... except perhaps admiration that you made it through such an experience with your spirit and sanity intact. I'm not sure I could have done the same. This means nothing to me... save that THIS man I can kill, slowly, to punish him for what he did to you, while I was unable to do anything to the people who had you when I found you."

There was silence for a long time, and Brad could feel many emotions swirling through their bond. "You really don't care," Lukas finally said, his voice rough as though he was crying. Wisely, Brad chose not to comment on that.

"That would be a lie," he said instead. "I do care, enough that I intend to make certain Emmanuel's death is appropriately painful and messy. But it does not CHANGE how I perceive you, or my feelings for you. You are my friend, you always have been and you always will be - even when you didn't know it. You are the only person in the world I have ever trusted completely."

For a long time Lukas said nothing, and Brad sensed that he was struggling. Finally the telepath reached through the bars and took Brad's offered hand. With the skin contact came a flood of emotions that left Brad gasping with their intensity. "Did I imagine it?" Lukas asked, so softly Brad wasn't even sure it wasn't a telepathic query. "What you said, at the end before you left me?"

"No," Brad whispered back. "No, you didn't. I said, and I meant it then... and I mean it now. I love you, Lukas, I always have. Though," he added wryly, sensing one of the causes of the conflict within the younger psychic, "I assure you the nature of my feelings has changed a bit since you were thirteen. You were a good friend, the closest thing I had ever had to family, and I knew that you would grow to be a very attractive man. I kissed you because I wanted you to know the possibility was there for the future - for when I saw you again when you were nineteen."

"Oh," Lukas said in a very small voice. His hand squeezed Brad's. "I... I love you too. Always have. I w-wanted to wait for you... I wanted you to be my first. But..."

"It doesn't matter," Brad cut him off. "We'll start again now, from here. Nothing in the past matters any more." In that moment he knew he would never be able to give up Lukas again; he wasn't sure what he was going to do about Nagi, but for the first time in a very long time, Brad Crawford had decided that he was damn well going to be selfish.


	9. Chapter 9

They stopped the cars when they were still quite some distance from the prison complex, not knowing what kind of advanced security the place might have. They pulled Aya's sports car and Youji's convertible over off the road, hiding them among the trees and brush with the ease of long practice.

"All right, last communications check," Omi said as they climbed out of the cars. They each toggled their mikes in turn, checking to make sure that everybody could hear everyone else. "Good," Omi said when he was satisfied that everything was in working order. "Now here's the plan.

"Originally I'd intended this to be a reconnaisance mission, but as Nagi has pointed out, if we're spotted, these people will probably move out, and FAST. If that happens, we'll never get another shot at rescuing Schuldig and Crawford," Omi said. "So instead we're going to give it our best shot on the first try."

"Are you sure he should be here?" Ken asked uncertainly, nodding at Nagi. They'd already been through this argument once, back at the Koneko, but obviously neither Ken nor Aya was quite satisfied with the results.

"YOU try getting him to stay behind," Omi replied, laughter in his voice. Ken raised an eyebrow and turned to Nagi. The telekinetic started to shrink back under that critical gaze, but then remembered his newfound determination. He bit his lip and stared back at the other man.

Something in his eyes must have convinced the white hunter, because Ken shrugged. "Okay. But what are we going to do if his powers cut out on him again? He's not exactly a front-line fighter type."

Omi nodded. "He's going to be staying in the back with me. If we're lucky, we'll have his powers to help us get in there. If we're not, we'll still have his knowledge of the weaknesses of psychic powers. Siberian, Abyssinian, you're on point. Prodigy and I will take the middle, and Balinese will cover from behind. We need to get in as quickly as possible; our only advantage in this fight will be the element of surprise."

"This is assuming they don't have a precognitive of their own," Aya pointed out.

"If they do, we're screwed anyway, so we may as well not worry about it," Omi replied with a shrug. "Once we're inside, we're probably going to have to split up to search the place effectively. If you run into a psychic you can't handle, call back to me and Prodigy will tell you how to deal with it." He looked at Ken and Aya in turn. "It's not going to be easy. This is going to be about as brutal as going up against the Estet Elders was." He swallowed. "I know there's no love lost between you and Schwartz. I want to thank you now for helping us anyway. We'll owe you, big time."

"Let's just get this over with," Aya growled. "We'll decide whether or not we believe your stories when we see Schuldig and Crawford for ourselves."

Youji rolled his eyes. "Right. Good to know you're giving us the benefit of the doubt. You heard the man, you're on point. Lead the way."

"Prodigy," Omi said as they headed for the prison, "if your powers cut out, I want you to get the HELL out of there, understand? You can come back and try another day; I don't want you dying because you wouldn't run when you should have."

Nagi nodded reluctantly after a moment of thought. "All right," he agreed, and Omi sighed with relief. The telekinetic didn't HAVE any other skills that would be useful in a combat situation; without his powers, he was nothing more than a moving target. Since Nagi had suddenly begun insisting on being included in this mission, Omi had been having nightmare visions of the telekinetic being killed just moments before they rescued Schuldig. He would never be able to live with himself if Nagi was hurt on a mission HE had organized and led.

They were used to covering ground quickly as a unit; the addition of Nagi slowed them somewhat due to the boy's varied injuries, but they reached the prison relatively quickly. It had been a high security facility, surrounded by tall barbed wire fences and guard posts. Omi squinted at the guard towers, and made out a flash of sunlight off of metal. "We've got guards up there," he said, unslinging his crossbow from where it was strapped across his back. "Balinese, can your wire make it up that high?"

Youji held up a hand to visually measure the distance. "I'll have to be practically right under it, but yeah, it should. As long as there's not more than one guard per tower."

"The towers are too small for more than one person," Ken noted, flexing his fist to check that his claws were moving smoothly. "They'd be squished up against each other. Besides, this is a PRISON... it was designed to keep people in, not to guard on all sides."

"True enough," Youji conceded. Omi nodded.

"All right. Balinese, you take the tower on the right, its got cover closer to the base. I'll take the left tower. On my signal." He hefted the crossbow and loaded a bolt, then made his way through the underbrush to a spot that gave him a decent shot at the guard.

"Bombay, I'm in position," Youji's voice came over the communicator.

"On my mark, then," Omi replied quietly, taking careful aim at the base of the guard's throat. "Try to make sure he can't call out or scream. Three... two... mark!"

He fired the bolt, pulled another from the thigh sheath, set it against the string and jerked his arm back, cocking the bow again. He raised it back to his shoulder and sighted on the guard, just in time to see the man collapse below the level of the tower railing. Satisfied, he glanced over at the other tower, and could just barely make out the shine of the sun off a slender wire running straight up from the ground to the tower.

"Bombay, target down," Omi said into the mike. A moment later the wire snapped back down towards the ground, and Youji echoed him.

Omi made his way back to the others, and surveyed the main gates. "Getting through there is going to be difficult, even with the guards down," he noted. He looked around, but none of the trees were high enough for the trick they'd used to get into Masafumi's mansion. "Damn it. I could probably rewire the security system from the outside, but it'll take too long... somebody might notice the guards missing."

"I'll do it," Nagi said. "It's only metal mesh, not solid metal, it's not even that heavy. I can open it."

Omi bit his lip. Nagi was still exhausted from the day before, and judging from the pinched look around the boy's eyes, he was probably suffering from a nasty reaction headache too. And for all he knew, these people had some way of detecting psychic powers, which would reveal them the moment Nagi used his telekinesis. But it was also their best chance to get through the gates. "All right, do it," he finally said. “Everybody be ready to move fast - I want those gates open for as little time as possible. Prodigy, if you can, arrange it so they DON'T lock behind us... we might have to leave in a hurry."

Nagi nodded, and moved to a place where he could see the gates in their entirety. His fists clenched and he narrowed his eyes, and the white hunters readied themselves. After a moment there was a scraping sound, then one of the gates swung open just enough to allow a person to squeeze through. "Go!" Omi commanded, and they ran.

Nagi stopped just inside the gate and waited until the others were through, then the gate swung closed once more. Omi didn't hear it latch, however, and he nodded at Nagi. They made their way quickly through the open yard, Omi keeping a sharp ear out for guard dogs. That would be all they needed. But they made it to the doors without encountering any problems.

"Seems like there's minimal security," Ken noted as they caught their breath and examined the doors. "Not much of a lock on the doors, either. You'd think they'd be more paranoid!"

"They probably think that I'm dead," Nagi pointed out softly. "And they apparently don't know about our connection to you, so as far as they know, they don't have to worry about any rescue attempts. They just have to keep Crawford and Schuldig IN, and blocking their powers will do most of the work for them."

"Right," Omi said, fishing out his lockpicks and kneeling before the door. He inserted the slender tools and fished around carefully. Ken was right, the lock on the doors was old and not particularly secure. However, Omi discovered, it was also rusted, which made picking it somewhat difficult.

Finally there was a grating noise, and the tumblers fell into position. "Let's go,” Omi said triumphantly, standing and pocketing his picks again. “Stick together for now, we'll fan out later if we have to. Prodigy, can you feel ANYthing from Mastermind?" Nagi shook his head, and Omi sighed. "Me, neither. All right, we'll just have to find them the old fashioned way. Keep an eye out, there may be more security measures on the inside than on the outside."

They made their way through the hallways, stepping carefully over the occasional place where plaster on the walls or ceiling had crumbled a bit. The building hadn't been in use for decades, and it showed. They reached the end of entrance hall, which opened up into a lobby. Two wings led off in opposite directions; they could just make out the first of the cells lined up in rows on both sides. Another hall led away directly across from them... probably to a cafeteria, workrooms, that sort of thing. Omi glanced around and didn't see anyone in sight, and signaled a cautious all-clear. Ken and Aya started forward, and he gestured for them to go to the right, while he, Nagi and Youji would go to the left. Chances were good the two missing psychics were in the cellblocks, not the rest of the building.

"You're not supposed to be here," a high-pitched voice echoed through the room in surprise. Omi stopped, halfway across the room, and looked up. There was a narrow balcony around the top of the room, presumably for guards to stand on. He cursed himself for missing it. Standing almost directly above the door Weiss had just come out of was a child. Omi wasn't certain if it was a boy or a girl, but the expression on the youth's face was disturbingly empty. "I don't know who you are. I'm calling the guards."

"No!" Nagi reacted, reaching out towards the child. Plaster dust swirled around them in the wind kicked up by his powers, but the youth just looked back at him blankly.

"You shouldn't do that," the child said. "That's very bad. You're a very bad boy, and you're not allowed to be bad. I'll have to stop you."

The wind died abruptly, the debris it had been carrying falling to the floor in a shower of dust. Nagi cried out and raised a hand to his head. "My powers!"

"That kid must be what stopped you all from fighting back," Youji noted, pulling his wire. He sent it arcing towards the child, and Omi winced; he hated the idea of killing someone that young, but they didn't seem to have much choice.

The wire sang through the air, and inches from the youth it too stopped dead, and fell to the floor. Immediately Omi raised his crossbow and fired, but the bolt veered off to one side and buried itself harmlessly in the wall. "What the hell?" Ken exclaimed.

"He's... he's using my powers!" Nagi said. "He's not just blocking me, he's draining me, and using it against us!"

If that was the case, Omi fervently hoped the child wouldn't decide to turn Schuldig's powers against them as well. The telepath was strong enough to kill a man simply by overwhelming his mind, and Omi didn't particularly want to experience that. "Prodigy, get out of here!" he ordered, loading his crossbow again. "If you're not here, he can't absorb your powers. Siberian, Abyssinian, split up to either side... Balinese and I will keep him occupied."

He started to raise the crossbow again, but Nagi stepped in front of him, ruining his shot. He opened his mouth to warn the boy off, but something in the telekinetic's face stopped him. A look of enraged determination, like nothing he'd ever seen Nagi show before. "Get out, all of you," the telekinetic said, eyes narrowing further. The child cried out in surprise, and the wind picked up again, blowing back and forth across the room as if it were water sloshing in a tank.

A moment later Omi realized what was happening. Nagi was fighting back, trying to overwhelm the child with sheer power. And when one of them finally lost… "Oh gods... OUT! Everybody out of the room! NOW!" he ordered, scrambling for the nearest doorway. "They're going to bring it down on top of us!"

Sure enough, the structural supports in the room were already groaning under the pressure of an internal hurricane they had never been designed to handle. Both Nagi and the child were sweating, eyes locked as they battled for control of the telekinetic force. The rest of Weiss had vacated the room, scattering into the hallways, but Omi could see Youji and Aya standing near the entrances, watching the battle just as Omi was.

The sound of a scraping noise and the safety clicking off a gun sent Omi instinctively diving for the floor, without even looking around to see where it had come from. Gunfire sounded, abrasively loud in the enclosed area, making his ears ring. He rolled back onto his feet and grabbed three of his poison darts, spinning to locate the source of the gunfire. There were four guards behind him, running down the cellblock towards the lobby. Omi threw his darts and nailed two of them, then he rolled again as the last two started firing again.

Something stung on his shoulder, and he knew he'd been hit. Shock and adrenalin masked the pain; he wouldn't know how bad the wound was until he had a moment to stop and look at it. His arm dropped to his side, unresponsive to his mental commands. Swearing, he dropped his crossbow and grabbed more darts with his off hand, sending them spinning into the corridor. His aim wasn't as good with his left hand; he hit one of the remaining guards squarely, but only nicked the other.

The man staggered, the poison affecting him even with only a partial dose, but he weighed at least two hundred pounds and his own body mass slowed the effects of the lethal poison. He raised his gun and fired again. Omi tried to dodge, only to realize that he was effectively pinned between the wall, the guard, and the raging telekinetic force in the lobby - he had nowhere to go.

The poison in the guard's bloodstream was just strong enough to affect his aim; his bullet drew a line of blood across Omi's left cheek and then shattered the concrete wall behind him. Chips of concrete flew everywhere, and Omi was certain that half of them ended up buried in his body, but he was still alive. He used the last of his darts to drop the guard, and stood panting in the corridor, praying that no more of them would show up. Out of darts and unable to use his right arm to draw the crossbow, he was effectively helpless.

A horrid screeching noise echoed through the building, as if the very girders were protesting the events within. Omi started to turn, and a massive force hit him in the side, tossing him nearly a hundred feet further into the cellblock. He hit the ground hard and skidded along the rough floor, crying out in pain as the jolting aggravated the wound in his shoulder. He finally slid to a halt, surrounded by a choking cloud of dust that obscured everything more than a few feet away from him.

He scrambled to his feet, coughing as the dust entered his lungs. He tugged his sleeve down over his hand and raised his arm to his mouth, using the soft cotton as a filter so he could breathe. The dust was simply drifting slowly down to the floor; the only disturbances were where his own breath sent it swirling in the air. That was VERY bad… it mean he was trapped in an air pocket, with no influx of air at all. It also meant the end of the hall had been sealed shut by the collapsing room – and he only had one good arm to move rubble with.

Sternly telling himself not to panic, he picked his way through the debris towards the lobby… or more accurately, towards where the lobby had BEEN. The others had seen which hall he’d ducked into, and they would dig him out. IF they weren’t trapped themselves. IF they were even still alive. When he realized his teeth were chattering, Omi made himself stop thinking of ‘if’s.

“Please, kami-sama,” he murmured as scattered rubble turned to a sloped wall of concrete and steel. “Please, let it be not too thick. Please let them all be okay.” Gritting his teeth against the pain in his arm, he started to climb.

Nagi kept a tight leash on his powers until he was certain all of Weiss was safely out of the room - he didn't want them caught in the backlash. He kept pushing at the child on the catwalk with increasing increments of power, and each time he would be able to use his powers momentarily before the child reasserted himself and Nagi's telekinesis seemed to disappear into a void. It wasn't a void, though... it was the child himself, and he was using that same telekinetic power against Nagi in return.

It was the same trick that had allowed these people to defeat Schwartz in the first place; turning their own powers against them. But this time Nagi wasn't caught by surprise, and he was willing to do anything it took to free his Master. He knew that what he was planning was essentially suicide - after the total power expenditure the night before, using his telekinesis so recklessly now was putting a massive strain on his system. But it would be worth it, if it saved Schuldig.

As the tension in the room continued to build, Nagi poured everything he had into his powers, draining himself into the psychic black hole the child had created. "You're being very BAD!" the child screamed at him as the telekinetic force stopped whipping back and forth and became a whirlwind instead. The youth was starting to lose control of his stolen powers, and was forced to expend them simply to keep his body from overloading. "Very, very BAD, and you're going to get in trouble!"

Nagi gritted his teeth and clung to consciousness as darkness threatened to overwhelm his vision. He could feel his heart straining, beating far too fast in reaction to the energy he was using up. He loosed his control on his powers entirely, letting the full destructive force of his abilities slam into the boy. The youth screamed, a scream of pain rather than defiance this time, and Nagi smiled grimly. Crawford had told him once that he was possibly the most powerful telekinetic ever born, and he was still continuing to get stronger as he matured.

It was far too much power for such a young body to handle. The boy tried to absorb it, then frantically tried to use it up before it could overwhelm him, but Nagi was feeding it to him faster than he could expend it. He screamed again, and again, as the power ate him up from the inside out, literally tearing him apart.

The child wasn't the only thing being torn apart... unable to handle the strain of the massive amounts of telekinetic force the youth had poured out in an effort to save himself, the roof and walls of the room finally gave way. Tons of concrete and steel girders came crashing down on both of them with unbelievable crushing force. Released suddenly from the psychic void he'd been trapped in, Nagi threw the last of his powers outward in a desperate attempt to save himself from being hit by the collapsing building.

Debris showered around the bubble of force he’d formed, piling up on all sides. Belatedly he realized that he was probably going to seal off the side passages Weiss had escaped into, trapping them inside. He tried to redirect his powers to keep those halls clear as well.

He knew he'd gone too far when he felt his heart beat twice in double-time, pounding against his chest... and then stop, sent into shock by the strain. Pain spiraled through him as his powers cut out, and the last of the rubble fell through his shield and pounded into him. The world faded away, seeming to move in slow motion as he collapsed, gasping helplessly for air. His last thought was to wonder if he really WOULD die this time... and regret that he wouldn't be able to see his Master’s reaction to his newfound determination.


	10. Chapter 10

The first indication they had that something was going on was the sound of distant shouting from the left, far down the corridor. A strong breeze wafted down the hall, swirling in and out of the cells and teasing at Lukas’ hair and clothes. “What the…” He moved to the front of the cell, trying to peer down to the end of the row. “What’s going on, can you tell?”

“I can’t see anything,” Brad answered him from the next cell. They both listened intently for a few minutes, and heard more shouting. There was a sense of growing pressure in the air, as if all the air in the entire building was being compressed. Wind - it could no longer truly be called a breeze - whistled down the hall at irregular intervals, growing in strength with each gust. "It could be Nagi... winds often manifest as a side effect of his powers. If so, we need to get ready - this will be our one and only chance to escape this place alive."

"Great," Lukas muttered, clutching the bars. "How the hell do we 'get ready'?"

The sounds of shouting turned to screaming before Brad could answer him, and the strongest gust yet blasted through the hall, carrying clouds of dust and even tiny stones with it. Lukas backed away from the bars, coughing, and heard Brad doing the same.

"Can you see anything?" Brad called, and Lukas shook his head.

"No, I..."

The world spun and came crashing down, crushing Lukas beneath the weight of it. The Voices were screaming in his head, louder and stronger - and yet somehow oddly more distant - than they had ever been before. Brad's mind beside him was a bright spear point, digging into his brain, burrowing inside him until he felt sure he would burst. He screamed, and heard Brad echo him as the precognitive was flooded with a wave of visions, shared with the telepath through their mental link.

Between the Voices and the visions, Lukas was rapidly heading towards a Fit. Some distant corner of him was aware that if he passed out now, he would probably never escape this place, and would be Emmanuel's playtoy for the rest of his life. The thought gave him strength, and he gathered every last shred of willpower to wrest a rudimentary shield into place.

The most distant of the Voices were cut out instantly, even by such a thin barrier. As the ability to think returned to him, Lukas realized that meant they were VERY far away, despite how clear they had been. There was a cluster of unfamiliar minds somewhere nearby that were still imposing on him - they were near whatever had collapsed and sent the debris cloud into the cellblock, and they were panicking about something. Next to him Brad was still linked to him, undaunted by the shield, but Lukas had lost the connection to the other psychic's visions.

Summoning more and better shields, Lukas was slowly able to block out the panicking minds, and even to damp out most of Brad's projecting. When he was finally certain that his thoughts were mostly his own, he opened his eyes - when had he closed them? - and looked around. He found that he was lying on the floor of his cell, covered by a thick layer of dust while more drifted down out of the air. He sat up and dusted himself off, straining to hear something with his physical ears.

There was the sound of soft whimpering from somewhere nearby - Brad, he realized after a moment. "Brad," he said, voice hoarse with coughing. "Hey, Brad, come on, snap out of it."

The other psychic was likely trapped by the sudden return of his visions, just as Lukas had been caught in the minds of everyone around him. The telepath reached out cautiously along their link, extending his shields as he went, until they encompassed Brad as well. He had no idea if telepathic shields would have any effect on precognitive visions, but it was worth a shot.

He was struck again by the flow of visions, a swirl of images too rapid and varied to make out. Multiple futures all tried to make themselves known at once, fighting for dominance like unruly children in a playground. Somewhere in that mess was Brad's consciousness, lost in all the myriad possibilities.

 _*Here,*_ he called, still following the link. He projected an image of the cell, of the rubble, making it as strong and detailed as he could. _*Here, Brad, come to me. This is the present. THIS is now. Follow the threads back to the place where they all meet.*_

He felt a touch, a familiar mind brushing against his, and slowly the visions faded. Replacing them came thoughts and memories, and he couldn't help but peek - he'd never been inside Brad's mind before, and he was curious. Especially about the time he was now blocked from remembering.

 _*No, Lukas,*_ Brad cautioned him, pushing him gently out of his mind. That formidable iron shield slammed down over the precognitive's mind, barring Lukas from all but the most basic contact once more. _*Trust me, my friend... you're better off not knowing. We've been given a new start, let's not ruin it with old arguments you don't even remember.*_

Lukas let it go, retreating back into his own mind and drawing his shields tightly around him. He DID trust Brad, and as badly as he wanted to know what he was missing, if Brad told him he was better off not knowing, then it was probably true.

Booted footsteps echoed off the walls, approaching them slowly. Lukas gritted his teeth and stood, fists clenched, waiting to see who came into view. If it was Emmanuel...

But it wasn't. A young man approached from out of the dust clouds, hardly visible until he was almost on top of them. He was young, maybe twenty, and had strongly Asian features despite his blue eyes. He said something in a language Lukas didn't recognize, and his tone of voice was somewhere between relief and resentment.

To Lukas' surprise, Brad answered the boy in the same language. Whatever he said startled the other man, then made him laugh and shake his head. The stranger pulled out a set of lockpicks and knelt in front of Lukas' cell.

"I take it this is our rescue?" Lukas said dryly to Brad. After the pounding his mind had just taken, his telepathy was a little too raw for him to want to casually use it, either to talk to Brad or to read the stranger's mind. "Is this Nagi?"

Brad coughed, almost as if he was covering a laugh. The boy looked up, blinked, and then shrugged and went back to work on the lock. "No, this is a former enemy of ours. Nagi has friends among them, and I suspect he managed to convince them to help rescue us."

The lock clicked open and the boy stood, bowing ironically to gesture Lukas out of the cell. "Thanks," he said as he stepped out. Crossing the invisible border between the cell and the hall immediately made him feel about a hundred times better about the situation.

The boy muttered something that didn't sound entirely complimentary, and went to work on Brad's cell. Lukas leaned against the far wall and waited, squinting down the hall in the direction the boy had come from. "You got any friends out there?" he asked the youth.

The Asian man looked up at him crossly and said something in that same language. From the sounds, Lukas was beginning to think it was Japanese - not that he knew anything about Asian languages. "What's he saying?" he asked Brad curiously.

Brad chuckled. "Mostly he's telling you off. The last thing he said was asking you to speak in Japanese."

"But I don't know Japanese!" Lukas protested. "Can't he speak English?"

The American sighed. "Lukas, a few days ago you DID know Japanese. You spoke it fluently. The fact that you can't even understand it now tells me that Emmanuel did a VERY thorough job of blocking your memories of your time in this country. If it was just a normal case of amnesia, you'd still remember the subconscious skills you had learned."

Lukas felt a chill run along his spine. "How the fuck do you forget a language that you know fluently? This is insane... I'm not sure even I would be able to do a block THAT complete on someone I didn't have a link... to..." His eyes widened and he swore. "Fucking bastard tagged me! All those years ago, he must have tagged me, and I never even knew it!"

"It would explain how he managed to find us," Brad agreed. "I was quite thorough about ensuring our tracks were covered." He asked something of the boy, who shrugged and replied with a few words that sounded like names. "Siberian says most of Weiss doesn't speak English, though Nagi does, thankfully. As soon as we're in a secure position, remind me to transfer at least a basic knowledge of the language to you telepathically. We have a close enough bond that I should be able to do that."

"Yeah, sure," Lukas agreed gratefully. He didn't like being out of the loop, and not being able to understand most of the things said around him definitely counted as 'out of the loop'. The boy said something questioning, and Brad shook his head. Blue eyes slanted a very puzzled look at Lukas, and then the youth gave an exclamation and Brad's cell door swung open.

"Let's go," Brad said, gesturing down the hall for the boy's benefit. The Japanese boy nodded and headed off back the way he'd come, gesturing for them to follow him.

The two psychics trailed along behind him, picking their way through the rubble carefully. The last thing either of them needed now was a sprained or broken ankle to complicate matters. "Lukas," Brad said quietly as they walked. "These people know you. Some of them hate you. Some of them know you... rather well." Lukas raised an eyebrow at that, but didn't comment. Hard as it was to imagine being with anyone other than Brad, he also wasn't naive enough to assume that he'd been celibate all those years if he HADN'T had Brad.

The American sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Right now I don't dare check my visions unless I'm in full trance, or they'll overwhelm me again. It's everything I can do to hold them off. But I don't need to be a precognitive to know that what's coming will be messy." He hesitated, then added, "Just be gentle, Lukas. You have a very great deal of influence over several of the people you're about to meet, and at least one of them will be severely hurt if you reject him in any way."

They had reached a much larger pile of rubble... large enough that it clogged the hallway. The Japanese boy was already climbing towards the top, where Lukas could make out a small gap between the debris and the ceiling. When the youth reached the gap, he started prying more rocks off the top and tossing them down.

Lukas sidestepped quickly to avoid a rock that seemed to have been aimed at him, only to be hit in the shoulder by another one. He glared up at the youth, who just smirked down at him and said something that sounded quite rude before he returned to tossing rocks. Lukas responded in kind, in German, making Brad laugh.

"If you don't want to get hit, climb up and help him," the precognitive suggested, already suiting actions to words. "Otherwise we're going to be stuck here for quite some time before that gap is wide enough to fit through."

 

* * *

Aya pried himself out from between the two rocks that had nearly crushed him, still profoundly shaken by what he'd seen. He'd been present when Nagi had destroyed Masafumi's mansion after Tot's death, but this had been destruction on an entirely different scale of magnitude.

He was battered and bruised, but nothing seemed to be broken, which was a minor miracle in and of itself. Two slabs of concrete had fallen such that they were leaning against each other above him, just inches from his back. They in turn had protected him from any other large chunks; the end result was that he hadn't been hit by anything larger than his fist. He still felt as if he'd been pummeled by a fierce hailstorm, but he would live.

Assuming that he wasn't now trapped in this hallway - given the amount of rubble he'd seen crashing down before he'd hit the deck and covered his head, he wouldn't be surprised if he was blocked in. In fact, he'd be surprised if he WASN'T. Cautiously he got to his feet and started picking his way forward through the debris.

After a moment he realized he could feel a slight movement of air against his face - at least he wasn't completely sealed in. The air current caused the dust that was hanging in the air to swirl around him in dizzying patterns, making it even harder to see. The lights were flickering as well - some of the power lines must have been damaged.

He hadn't been far from the entrance when it all came slamming down, so it didn't take him very long to reach the rock pile that had once been the entrance to the lobby. He was extremely relieved to see that while the pile was high, it didn't fill the hall completely... there was more than enough room for him to get through at the top. He started climbing, wondering grimly if there would be anything left to find on the other side.

The movement of the air was much stronger when he neared the top, and he realized why the moment he crested the peak; the entire ceiling of the lobby had fallen in, exposing the room to the elements. Wind currents were creating dust devils out of the lighter debris, and there was concrete, plaster chunks and steel beams everywhere.

"Aya!" a familiar voice called from across the room. Aya looked up, and saw Youji just emerging from the hall that led to the main entrance. It too had been partially blocked, but the playboy had no trouble getting through. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," Aya replied, sliding down the other side of the pile. "You?"

"I'm going to turn several lovely shades of black and blue, I'm sure, but otherwise I'm okay," Youji replied wryly. He surveyed the damage, and his half-humourous expression melted into a concerned frown. "Gods. Nagi must be somewhere under all this mess. And Omi and Ken bolted into the cellblocks..." he gestured, and Aya turned to see that the other two hallways had been completely blocked, rather than only partially filled. "We need to start digging them out, I guess. Hopefully this took care of the guards for us."

Aya forebore to mention that if it had taken care of the guards, it had likely taken care of Omi and Ken as well. As far as Nagi went... he doubted the telekinetic could have survived this, but then again, he'd have said the same after Nagi had brought down Masafumi's mansion.

"I saw where Nagi was standing just before it all came down," the redhead said, moving towards the centre of the room. "I'll look for him - you start digging Omi and Ken out."

As he'd expected, Youji went straight for the hall Omi had bolted into. Aya was badly worried about his own lover, but at the same time, he didn't think he'd be able to bear digging through all that rubble and finding Ken's dead body. The mere thought made his chest ache so badly he couldn't breathe. So instead, he moved to the approximate area the telekinetic had last been in and started tossing chunks of debris aside, looking for some sign of the boy's body.

He'd only been digging for a minute when he realized there was something odd about the pattern of the collapse... there was a circle where the debris was piled higher than in other places. He scrambled up to the top, nearly sliding back down again several times on the shifting rocks.

Sure enough, within the circle was an area with much less debris in it. The wind was playing havoc with the dust, making it difficult to see, but Aya's sharp eyes spotted Nagi's hand and sleeve lying limp against a rock. He picked his way down to the bottom, sliding the last foot or so, and quickly began digging the boy out from under the pile.

It took him only moments to free Nagi's upper torso from the loose debris. He checked the boy's pulse and breathing, and confirmed what his eyes had already told him... the telekinetic was dead, either because of the falling ceiling or the expenditure of his own powers.

He nearly left it at that. A large part of him was urging him to just walk away... after all, Ken was still trapped, and might be running out of air. And though he had reluctantly admitted to himself that he couldn't blame Nagi for what Schwartz had done to his sister, he still wouldn't shed any tears over the boy's death.

But... he remembered the devastated look on Omi's face when they'd told him the telekinetic had gone missing the day before. And the way Nagi had flinched from him, cowering in the corner when he'd snarled at the boy. Nagi had suffered enough abuse and neglect in his life, and now Aya - supposedly one of the 'good guys' - was just going to walk away from him without even trying to save him?

His hands were moving before his mind had reached the conscious decision, and he realized he'd known what he was going to do all along. There really was no other choice, not if he wanted to be able to live with himself in the future. He pinched the boy's nose shut and leaned over, sealing his mouth to the telekinetic's and forcing air into the boy's lungs. After doing that a few times, he moved to try to restart the youth's heart by pumping on it, hard. Nagi already had a cracked rib, and Aya wouldn't be surprised if he ended up with several more after this, but if it saved his life then it was worth it.

He kept at it, moving back and forth between breathing and heart, going at the task with his usual relentless determination. He wasn't going to give up until someone pulled him away from the body or Nagi breathed on his own.

He wasn't sure how many cycles he'd been through when Nagi suddenly choked against his mouth and thrashed weakly. Aya pulled away, supporting the boy as he gasped painfully for air, breathing in tiny little pants because of the pain in his ribs. "Prodigy, can you hear me?" he asked.

"Y-yes," Nagi finally managed to respond. He was shaking like a leaf and trying to huddle in on himself as if for warmth. His skin was cold and clammy to the touch, and Aya frowned. Pulling his trenchcoat off, he gently draped it around the boy and started to work on freeing his legs as well.

"Balinese, any luck?" he called to his teammate. The playboy paused in his work and pushed his hair back from his face - he'd lost his hairtie at some point, apparently.

"Yeah, he's in there - we can hear each other if we shout," Youji replied, though he sounded grim. Aya blinked - he'd been so focused he hadn't even heard Youji shouting. "He's injured and can't dig, gunshot to the shoulder, and he says there's no air movement in there."

"Right. Give me your trenchcoat, then keep working," Aya ordered. Youji started to ask why, then saw Aya's trench already wrapped around Nagi. He nodded and shed his jacket in a single smooth move, tossing it across the rubble to Aya. The redhead caught it deftly and added it to the one already wrapped around the boy. "Will you be all right if I leave you for a few minutes?" he asked.

"I'll be f-fine," Nagi whispered, clutching the jackets to him. "I'm just exhausted. Go help the others."

Aya didn't need to be told twice. He headed for Youji, but the blonde waved him off. "Check on Siberian," the playboy said. "I've almost reached Bombay, and he says he's probably got enough air for days, so don't worry about it."

"Thanks," Aya acknowledged briefly. Even that much gratitude made Youji give him a surprised look, but he hardly saw it as he turned and made his way to the other side of the room as quickly as he could. He surveyed the blockage of the corridor Ken had vanished into, and though he saw a small gap up near the top. Climbing up, he shouted into the hole. "Siberian! Can you hear me?"

"Abyssinian!" Aya had never been more relieved to hear anything than he was to hear Ken's voice at that moment. "Yeah, I'm in here. I'm okay, and I found Crawford and Schuldig. They're fine too." His lover sounded torn between relief and disappointment, and Aya had to admit he felt much the same way. In many ways, things would have been so much easier if the two older psychics had been dead, or even if Weiss simply hadn't been able to find them. "Are the others okay?"

He started scraping away the top layer of debris, widening the gap from his end as Ken was probably doing on the other side. Hopefully it wasn't too wide, so they would meet in the middle relatively quickly. "Bombay is trapped the same way you are, but Balinese is almost through to him, and they're talking." He hesitated, then added, "Prodigy isn't doing very well, but he's alive, and that's more than I expected."

Someone on the other side made a concerned noise, and then Crawford asked, "What's wrong with him? I assume he's responsible for the collapse?"

"Yes," Aya told them, grunting as he shoved a large chunk of steel out of the way. "He was fighting with the... anti-psychic, or whatever it was. He's shaking badly, curled up, and his skin is cold and clammy. His eyes are dilated too - shock, most likely. He wasn't breathing when I found him, I had to restart his heart."

"Christ," Ken swore. "Same thing that happened yesterday after he totalled those warehouses."

"He collapsed after using his powers yesterday, and then used them again today?" Crawford said, sounding amazed. "He shouldn't have been able to MOVE, let alone bring down a building. Listen, Abyssinian... he's going into reaction shock. Forget about us, we'll dig our way out of here soon enough. You need to keep him warm, as warm as possible, or his system might shut down again. If you have any sort of food or liquid, give it to him right away, force it down his throat if he won't eat it. And don't let him go to sleep!"

Aya hesitated, but Ken spoke up. "Go on, Abyssinian, we're almost through to you anyway. I can see you." Leaning down, Aya saw that his lover was indeed no more than a few feet away. Ken grinned and gave him a thumbs up, then shooed him off. "Go, take care of Prodigy, or I don't think Balinese will be able to keep Bombay from going ballistic on us this time."

Snorting at the likely accuracy of that statement, Aya gave his lover a small smile before sliding back down the pile and heading for Nagi once more. Youji had broken through on his side, and was now just trying to widen the hole enough to get Omi through it. The swordsman clambered down into the hollow where Nagi had been buried, and found the boy curled up on his side, still shivering.

He hesitated, but remembered Crawford's injunction to keep the boy as warm as possible. Sitting so that his back was propped against a larger piece of concrete, he drew the shaking youth into his arms and held him close. Nagi's eyes were closed, and for a horrible moment Aya thought he might have fallen unconscious. "Prodigy? Can you answer me?"

He suffered through a long moment of fear, before Nagi finally opened his eyes and nodded slightly. His eyes were glazed and dilated - he was in shock, as Aya had guessed. The redhead didn't know what 'reaction shock' was, but it apparently manifested in much the same way as regular shock. "Talk to me," he commanded the boy. "Don't fall asleep."

Nagi opened his mouth, clearly struggling to form words. "Wh-what d'you wan' me t'talk abou'?" he finally managed, his words slurred rather badly.

Aya sighed in relief that the telekinetic could talk at all. "Anything you like." He had a flash of inspiration. "Tell me about computers - Bombay is always trying to explain them to us, but it seems like a foreign language to me."

As he'd hoped, Nagi brightened somewhat and launched into a slurred and convoluted 'explanation' that Aya couldn't follow a single word of. But he was talking, and his diction was improving with each passing moment. He wasn't shaking quite as hard now, and had instinctively curled up against Aya's chest with his head on the older man's shoulder.

"Prodigy!" Omi's voice came from above, interrupting the incoherent torrent of words from the boy. Both Aya and Nagi looked up to see Omi sliding down the pile towards them, followed by Youji. "Are you okay?" the youngest Weiss demanded anxiously.

" 'M fine," Nagi asserted, lowering his head back to Aya's shoulder. "Tired. Cold. 'll be okay." He looked up again suddenly, his body tensing in Aya's arms. "Did you find Schuldig?"

"Siberian found them," Aya replied quickly. "They're both fine, they're digging their way out to us now."

"Thank all the gods," Youji said, and Omi nodded agreement. "Bombay, you help Abyssinian keep Prodigy warm... I'll go dig from the other side."

Omi lowered himself carefully to sit beside Aya, and the redhead turned so that Nagi was caught between them, warmed by body heat from both sides. "Keep talking," Aya ordered the boy, who showed signs of drowsing now that he was finally warming up. Nagi took up his narrative once more, prodded occasionally by questions from Omi that didn't mean anything to Aya, but which apparently served to send Nagi off on entirely new tangents.

"We've got them!" Youji shouted after an interminable time. Omi let out a whoop of relief and sat up, helping Nagi to do the same.

"Man, I thought we'd NEVER get out of there," a familiar nasal voice exclaimed in English. Aya only understood about half of the words, but he certainly understood the way both Omi's and Nagi's faces lit up at the sound of them.

"Gebieter!" Nagi's voice was too soft to carry far, but he was already trying to squirm out of their grasp. "Let go!" the boy insisted. "I need to see him, please!"

"Let him go, Abyssinian, he won't relax again until he's seen for himself that Schuldig is all right," Omi ordered in an undertone. Aya nodded and released his hold on the telekinetic. Omi helped his friend over the lip of the rubble, and the moment they crested it a familiar shock of brilliant orange hair came into view.

"Master!" Nagi cried in Japanese, pulling free of Omi's grasp and stumbling forward to throw himself into the German's arms, nearly knocking the startled man off his feet.

"Schu!" Omi was right behind Nagi, glomping them both and hugging them tightly, babbling something to Schuldig that Aya couldn't hear from where he was climbing down the side of the pile.

Something was wrong, though... from all of Omi's and Youji's stories and insistences that Schuldig loved Nagi more than anything else in the world, Aya would have expected the man to look happy at being reunited with his lover. Instead the German looked stunned and dismayed, glancing over at Crawford as if for help. Aya's suspicion was confirmed - though not in the way he'd expected - by the telepath's first words.

"Do I know these kids?"


	11. Chapter 11

It took a moment for the German's words to register with Omi. When they did, he pulled back and stared at the older man in horror. "Wh-what did you say?" he asked in Japanese.

Nagi had pulled back as well, though he hadn't released his hold on his Master. The redhead was looking at them both uncomprehendingly, then turned a beseeching look on Crawford.

The American sighed, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "This is going to be very complicated," he said in English. "Omi, Nagi... This isn't the Schuldig you know. His name is Lukas, and he has no idea who any of you are."

Omi stared at the precognitive as if he'd lost his mind. "How could he not... he has amnesia?" he finished, that being the only possible explanation he could think of for what Crawford had said.

"Oi, somebody mind translating for the rest of us?" Ken asked plaintively in Japanese. "What the fuck is going on?"

"When I have a clue, I'll let you know," Omi replied tensely. He was looking back and forth between Crawford and... and Lukas now, and he didn't like the expression on either of their faces. Most of all, though, he was worried about Nagi. The telekinetic had never been strong at the best of times, and he'd been through a hell of a lot in the past few days.

The youngest member of Schwartz looked like he'd been struck by a live electrical current. "You... you don't know who I AM?" he said, his voice breaking on the last word. Omi stepped forward again immediately, putting a hand on his friend and sometime lover's shoulder.

"Nagi," he started, but the telekinetic shrugged him off violently, releasing the telepath and backing away, shaking his head.

"No. No, I don't believe it! It c-can't be t-true..." his words were cut off by a gasp, and he turned a horrible sickly grey colour, his hand rising to his chest and his eyes going wide.

Crawford and Omi moved at the same moment, catching the boy between them as he fell. "Shit," Omi swore helplessly. "Oh gods, please tell me his heart hasn't stopped again..."

"No, he'll be all right," Crawford assured him, though Omi rather thought the precognitive's voice held an unusual note of worry in it. The American looked up and around at everyone who was standing there staring at the three of them in shock. "We need to get out of here and regroup," he said in English, then repeated himself in Japanese. "Full explanations can wait until we're inside and Nagi has been properly looked after."

To Omi's surprise, it was Aya who first nodded and stepped back, gesturing at the door with his sheathed katana. "Your apartment has been breached, and I imagine it's crawling with police by now," he said in his gruff way. "The Koneko will do as a meeting place - at least it's familiar to Nagi."

"The less stress he has to deal with right now, the better," Youji agreed, and Ken nodded. Something that had been tight in Crawford's expression relaxed slightly.

"Thank you," he said to them formally, standing and cradling Nagi in his arms. The telekinetic was either asleep or unconscious - Omi was willing to bet on the latter - and his breathing was not particularly steady. He looked like hell.

"We should all fit in the cars," Omi said, not bothering to repeat himself in English. He couldn't imagine why Schuldig would suddenly be unable to understand Japanese - amnesia didn't cause you to lose your knowledge of things like languages that you knew fluently. But even if that was the case, he wasn't sure he was really ready to deal with a Schuldig that didn't recognize him just yet.

"But I think it would be best for Nagi not to be in the same vehicle as Sch.... as Lukas," he amended, flinching slightly as he said it. "Just in case he wakes."

Crawford looked pained for a moment, then nodded. "I'll stay with Lukas," he said, and there was something in his voice Omi would almost have called possessiveness if it had been anyone but Crawford. "He... needs someone to translate for him," the American added, almost defensively.

"I'll take Nagi," Youji said quietly, stepping forward and taking the small boy from Crawford's arms. Nagi was small for his age and thinner than was healthy, because of the amount of energy his powers stole from his body. Omi knew from experience that the younger boy hardly weighed anything at all.

Somehow they got themselves sorted out after that, and Omi fretted all the way back to the Koneko, not liking the way Nagi looked or sounded. But Crawford had said the boy would be all right, he reminded himself sternly. Now that the anti-psychic was dead, the precognitive's powers should have been functioning normally.

His living room was tiny, and it was a tight squeeze to get everyone inside it. It would have made more sense to talk in the mission room, but Omi didn't want to get too far from the bedroom where he'd laid Nagi down to rest. If the boy woke alone... well, he'd already gone to several drastic extremes in the last few days. There was nothing to keep him from doing something else just as drastic.

He took the time to do a quick bandaging job on the bullet wound in his shoulder - thankfully the bullet had gone through cleanly and putting pressure bandages on the entry and exit wounds was enough to stop the blood, at least for the moment. He rigged a sling, then returned from his bedroom to find Aya, Ken and Youji arrayed along one wall, watching the two psychics who were seated on the couch. A glance told Omi that the two were in deep trance - nothing short of an earthquake was likely to bring them out of it. He looked back at his teammates. "What are they doing?"

"Crawford said something about 'implanting Japanese' into Schu," Youji muttered, shrugging. Of the four of them he was the most relaxed at the moment, but that wasn't saying much. Omi knew his lover well enough to see the subtle signs of tension in the older man's body. Youji was not pleased about the situation, he was just hiding his nervousness better than Ken or Aya.

"I don't get it," Ken said, running a hand through his dark hair. "Schuldig already speaks fluent Japanese. What's the deal?"

"I suspect we need Crawford to tell us that, Ken-kun," Omi replied grimly. "And trust me, I intend to get as complete an answer from him as is humanly possible!" That made Ken crack a grin - they were all familiar with Omi's sometimes painfully intensive mission debriefing procedures. When the Weiss leader wanted to know something, there was very little that would stop him from discovering the answer.

A quiet sigh from the other side of the room told him that the two Schwartz members had come out of trance. Crawford looked exhausted, with a pinched, pained expression around his eyes and mouth. The German - Omi found it difficult to think of him as Lukas - was blinking like he was dazed and trying to sort through an overload of information. Which, actually, he probably was.

"I didn't know you were a telepath," Omi said to Crawford, by way of an opening gambit. It was as good a place to start as any.

"Only a minor one," the American replied, his voice weary. "Compared to... Lukas, I might as well not even be rated with the ability." Omi found it vaguely comforting that Crawford was also hesitating over Schuldig's new name. "I can only speak to other telepaths, and even then my range is limited. The only reason I could give Lukas the language is because of my familiarity with his mind."

That made Omi raise an eyebrow. "I don't suppose you'd care to explain exactly what happened, and why he doesn't remember us?" he asked in a deceptively mild voice. He glanced at the telepath. "You don't remember us, right?"

"Not a clue," the German replied in hesitant Japanese, shaking his head. "Never seen any of you before in my life, except Brad."

'Brad'... that made Omi blink in surprise. Schuldig had once told him that Schwartz's leader had forbidden him to ever call him by first name, yet at the moment Crawford didn't seem in any way displeased by hearing his name from the telepath.

"Sit, all of you," Crawford said with some irritation. "We've both already got migraines, we don't need to be craning our necks to look up at you. We're not going to attack you. At the moment, we owe you our lives."

Slowly, Weiss took seats in various places around the room. Youji slung himself across one chair, Omi took the other, and Aya seated himself on the wide windowsill, which had a cushion for just that purpose. There was room for one more person on the couch beside the two psychics, but Ken took one look at them and shook his head, dropping gracefully to sit at the floor by his lover's feet instead.

"Now, explain," Omi said, letting his voice get a little cold. "I want every detail - I think you owe ME that much, if not the rest of us."

Crawford took a deep breath, and seemed to be gathering himself. "I don't know how much you - any of you - know about Schuldig's past, so I'm going to start at the beginning. When I found him here in Tokyo several years ago, he was... in a very nasty situation, with no control over his powers whatsoever." Omi saw the German give Crawford a very surprised look at that piece of information, and filed the expression away as one more piece of this whole puzzle.

"I took him in, trained him, introduced him to Estet, and made him my teammate," the precognitive continued, staring at a fixed point on the wall rather than looking at any of them. "He had amnesia then - he didn't remember anything prior to a few months before I found him. I tried several times to find a way around it, but every time I tried to formulate a plan, I'd receive a vision of..." he paused, and grimaced. "Well. Let's just say, the results would have been unpleasant, though there were several variations on the theme. There was something that had happened to him, something his mind was hiding from, and which he simply could not face without losing control of himself and his abilities completely."

Omi winced at the very thought. He had some idea of just how powerful a telepath Schuldig was, and he'd seen the utter destruction wrought when Nagi had lost control of his emotions and his powers. He didn't think the results of a telepathic outburst would be any less destructive than a telekinetic one, especially in a city with as crowded a population as Tokyo. Crawford nodded at him, seeing the expression.

"I finally gave up," Crawford picked up the thread of the story again. "That was about the same time that we picked up Nagi as an addition to our team, and we began to form a stable, powerful trio. Schuldig knew from my reaction upon meeting him that I knew something of his past, but he told me flatly that he didn't want to know any of it. Given the visions I'd had, I thought that was for the best."

The wheels had been turning in Omi's head during all this, and he thought he was starting to form an idea of what might have happened. Before he could say anything, however, Youji jumped in. "His name was Lukas before he forgot everything, wasn't it?" the former P.I. asked shrewdly. "So, what... he's been regressed?"

"The telepath who captured us was a former instructor of the psychic Institute that trained us as teenagers," Crawford replied grimly. "Somehow he managed to 'flip' Lukas' amnesia, so that he now remembers everything PRIOR to the event he's blocked, but has completely forgotten everything that came after. And I do mean completely," he added, eyes narrow. "That's why I had to imprint Japanese on him. Even though he knew it fluently enough to be able to think in the language, he now doesn't remember a single word of it, except for what I just gave him."

"And I'd give a lot to know how the fuck he managed it, too, the bastard," Lukas added with venom. "He MUST have planted a tag on me when I was a kid, learning from him. There's no other way he should have been able to get that deep in my head, shields or no shields."

Omi had an odd expression on his face as he listened to the German speak. It was more than just the slow and awkward Japanese - there was something about the way he spoke, about the way he held himself, even about his expression, that was indefinably _different._ He'd have found it easier to believe that this man was Schuldig's long lost twin brother than Schuldig himself. The differences were subtle, but they were there.

Resolutely, he decided to treat Lukas as exactly that - Schuldig's twin brother, not his beloved Gebieter. Except that there was one small complication that prevented that from being the easy solution. "All right," he said, proud that his voice stayed level. "Lost skills are relearnable, and I'm sure Crawford is glad that you remember your friendship with him. But we can't leave things like this."

"Why not?" Lukas asked, shaking his head. "I mean, okay, so I'm gonna have to get to know all you people again. What's so bad about that? People live with amnesia all the time, and they get on with their lives."

Omi's lips thinned. "You'll get no arguments from me on that subject," he said tersely, earning himself a snort from either Ken or Aya, he wasn't sure. It had come from their direction, anyway. "But most amnesiacs don't have someone relying on them the way that Nagi relies on you. For you not to remember him is... unacceptable."

He saw the way Crawford's expression shut down abruptly, and his eyes narrowed slightly. _You don't like that at all, do you,_ he thought to himself, careful to keep the thought at a level where the telepath wouldn't be able to pick it up casually. _Nagi is your responsibility almost as much as he's Schuldig's... why does any mention of his dependence on Schuldig make you shut down like that?_

Lukas was looking between him and Crawford uncomprehendingly. "I still don't get it. What's the big deal? What is this kid to me, anyway? I mean, I'm not like, his FATHER or something, am I?"

"Not quite," Crawford replied, his lips curling in a humourless smile. "It's far more complicated than that, and you're not going to like this at all, Lukas."

Before he could get any further, there was a shuffle at the doorway. With a sinking feeling, Omi knew what it was even before Nagi spoke. "Gebieter?" the pet murmured, dark blue eyes huge and liquid with unshed tears. His gaze was fixed on the telepath, as it generally was if his Master was in the room.

Omi was on his feet before he knew what he was doing. Inwardly he was cursing Nagi's uncanny ability to walk in on a conversation at the worst possible moment - he wouldn't have believed the telekinetic would even be capable of sitting up at the moment, let alone walking! Outwardly, however, he kept his voice calm and soothing. "Liebe, you need to..."

His voice caught on the words, however, as he got a look a Lukas' horrified expression. The telepath had gone as pale and wide-eyed as Nagi, and was staring at the telekinetic like the boy was some kind of deadly disease. "WHAT did he just call me?" he demanded, his voice shaking. "Brad, please tell me that was some fucked up Japanese word you didn't teach me that only sounds like German..."

Crawford was looking pained again, and had laid a restraining - comforting? - hand on the German's shoulder. "I'd have chosen a better way to break this to you, but yes, he said what you think he did," he told Lukas as Omi and Youji both moved forward to support Nagi, who looked like he was thinking about fainting again. "You are Nagi's Master, in a Dominant/submissive sense, and that's why it's very bad that you don't remember him."

"You have got to be fucking kidding me!" Lukas blurted out, switching back to English in his agitation. Omi almost wished he'd reverted to German instead - he wouldn't have been able to understand what was being said then, but neither would Nagi. The telekinetic huddled into Omi and Youji as Lukas continued, "There is NO fucking WAY! Not only would I absolutely never sleep with a fucking KID, but you could not torture me enough to force me into doing that to anybody!"

The telepath's voice was rising hysterically with each word, though Crawford was now obviously trying to calm him, without much success. Aya and Ken were watching wide-eyed from the sidelines, while Omi and Youji did their best to shelter a whimpering Nagi from something that surely had to be the pet's worst nightmares come true.

Crawford met Omi's eyes, and jerked his head at the hallway. Omi nodded. "Youji, get Liebechen out of here," he said softly, fighting to keep his voice level. "Try to calm him down. Aya-kun, Ken-kun... you go with them." He saw protest in both of their eyes, and shook his head once, firmly. "NO buts," he ordered, in the coldest voice either had ever heard him use.

Aya looked like he was still thinking about arguing, but Ken saw something in Omi's face that made him stand and tug at his lover's hand, forcing the redhead to his feet. "This is none of our business," Ken murmured, though from the expression on his face he wanted to stay every bit as much as Aya. "Let them sort it out." After a moment he was successful in urging the swordsman into the hall towards Omi's bedroom.

That left Omi facing off against Crawford and Lukas, who was still more than half hysterical. Omi moved forward until he was close enough for them to see the utter coldness in his eyes. Then he punched Lukas, hard, in the stomach. If Crawford saw it coming, he made no move to stop it.

"What the fuck was that for?" Lukas demanded when he finally managed to stop retching and get his breath back.

"For being a fucking insensitive asshole," Omi replied, voice frozen and eyes flashing. "You're a fucking telepath, and I know you're enough of an empath to read someone projecting as strongly as Nagi was. You utter bastard, did it even occur to you to look for yourself to see what he feels for you?"

"I don't care what the fuck he feels for me," Lukas insisted wildly. "He's BROKEN, I didn't even have to look to know that much. How... how could I DO that to someone?"

Omi snarled, and reached out to grab the telepath by the collar. He often surprised people with just how much strength he had in his arms; he looked small and weak, but it took a lot of force to draw a bow or cock a crossbow. He used it now, yanking Lukas towards him easily though he only used one hand. "Do I seem particularly broken to you?" he demanded. "Newsflash, bastard, I'm your other sub. YOU didn't break Nagi, a whole lot of other people did. You were putting him back together, one tiny piece at a time. At least," he released the man back onto the couch and stepped away. "You WERE fixing him, until you went and broke him again with that little display. Even if we manage to get him to accept Youji as an alternate Master now, after THAT, I don't know if we'll ever be able to fix him."

Crawford had been watching the scene in bemusement. "I must admit, you don't seem particularly submissive at all, let alone broken," he observed, quirking an eyebrow. Omi glanced at him.

"When I'm wearing my collar, I'm submissive, and I get to relax and unwind. When I'm not, I'm the leader of one of the best assassin teams in Tokyo, so no, I'm not particularly submissive then." His mission outfit's shirt's neck was low enough that there was no doubt about whether he was or wasn't wearing his collar at the moment. "For me it's a choice, not a lifestyle. For Nagi, it's something he doesn't know how to survive without."

Lukas was rubbing the back of his neck, where his collar had bit into him when Omi yanked him forward. He wouldn't meet Omi's eyes. "I can't," he said, and something about the quiet, almost desperate tone in his voice made Omi back off and re-examine the situation. "I can't do it. I don't care how much he needs it or how good I was for him, I CAN'T, do you understand?"

Omi looked at the older man speculatively, and deep in his green eyes he saw a spark of fear and self-loathing. Something told him that no amount of pushing was going to make Lukas accept this situation and take his place as Nagi's Master.

"That's why we need to fix this," he replied, his voice no longer angry. "We can't leave things this way. I'm not sure Nagi can survive without you, even if we can convince him to take Youji as a Master. He loves you, really, truly loves you. You're the centre of his universe, and losing you would shatter him. HAS shattered him," he corrected himself grimly.

"It may not be possible to reverse the effect," Crawford warned him. "I'm not strong enough to do it, and I doubt Lukas could do it himself. The only one we know for sure can do it is Emannuel, and I doubt we'll be able to convince him to undo his handiwork, even assuming we can catch him."

"And that doesn't bother you nearly as much as it ought to, does it?" Omi retorted, and had the satisfaction of seeing Crawford flinch. "What's in this for you, Crawford? I may not be a psychic, but even I can see that you've got some stake in keeping him Lukas instead of Schuldig. What is it?"

Crawford's mouth thinned, and for a moment Omi thought he wasn't going to answer. Then he laughed, a bitter sound full of years of pain and suffering. It made Omi's eyes widen, and he actually took a step back. "I love him," the American replied simply. "I always have. I waited years for him, only to return to find that he had no memory of me. I've done everything I could, all this time, to make him as happy as possible - even lowered myself to tormenting Nagi so that he would 'rescue' him and cement that relationship." He looked Omi straight in the eyes, with more expression on his face that Omi had ever seen the older man display. "Now I have him back, and he loves me again. Forgive me if I find myself reluctant to return to solitude and torment, regardless of the cost to Nagi."

Omi stared at him, and wondered what he would have done in Crawford's place. If it had been Youji... would he have had the strength to give him up to another, to suffer endlessly in silence, just to see Youji happy? Given the chance to have Youji after all that, would he have been able to pass it up, even if it meant that, say, Ken would be shattered by the loss?

He didn't know the answer - or maybe he was just afraid to admit what the answer really was.


	12. Chapter 12

Lukas leaned against the door, watching as Brad slowly stripped off his ruined suit. He'd never seen the older man in anything other than the semi-military 'uniform' of the Institute they'd grown up in, but he had to admit that the suit matched his friend's no-nonsense exterior. Or at least, it would have, had it not been in shreds.

The Japanese kids who'd rescued them had promised to find suitable clothing for them both - the blond one, Youji or Balinese or whatever his name was, had told Lukas to raid his closet for clothes since they were the same size, but they were going to have to go out to buy Brad something. The American was head and shoulders taller than any of the four 'Weiss' members.

He was still trying to absorb everything he'd learned that night. He simply could not comprehend the idea of himself as this boy's Dom... regardless of whether he was 'helping' the boy or not, that sort of situation was inextricably linked in his mind with what Emmanual had done to him. How could he have sunk so low? What the hell had happened to him during that time he couldn't remember, to make him such a sick fucking bastard?

Brad had carefully draped his ruined jacket and shirt over the back of a chair - Lukas had to suppress a chuckle. Some things would never change, apparently. Brad had always been anal about organizing everything in his life. Maybe it was a side effect of being a precognitive, the desire to control as much as you could in order to affect the future you wanted.

"Brad?" he said, and his voice came out much more fragile sounding than he'd intended it to. He cursed himself, as Brad turned inquiring amber eyes towards him. The last thing Brad needed right now was for Lukas to show any kind of weakness - he needed to know he had a strong teammate at his back, someone he could depend on.

"Come to bed, Lukas," was all the American said, sounding weary beyond words. There was a small smile on his face as he held out a hand to Lukas, however. Willingly the telepath moved forward to take his friend's hand, and he found himself pulled into a tight embrace.

He returned it without hesitation, burying his face in Brad's neck and holding the older man as if he was afraid to let go. "I never thought I'd be able to hold you like this," Brad murmured, his breath ghosting over Lukas' ear and making him shiver slightly. "All these years I've had to watch you from a distance..."

"Never again," Lukas swore, tightening his grip slightly. "I won't let anything separate us again, Brad. We've both waited too long for this. I..." he stumbled on the words, and was disgusted to realize that he was shy and embarrassed. "I love you, Brad," he said, finding the words much more difficult to say now that they were face to face and not just holding hands through prison bars.

"And I, you, my friend," Brad replied, lowering his head to kiss Lukas gently.

Lukas was having none of that - he wasn't breakable, and he'd been waiting far too long for the taste of Brad's lips on his again. Brad knew his darkest secret and had accepted him anyway - there was nothing to hold him back, or restrain him. He went on the offensive, turning the gentle kiss into a fiercely passionate one.

One or both of them moaned, the sound vibrating between them as they pulled back slightly. "You are wearing far too much," Brad said, his eyes narrowed. Lukas laughed softly, and stepped back out of the circle of the older man's arms. Brad let him go, but not without a predatory look that promised he'd be chased if he didn't return soon.

It was exactly as he'd dreamed, on those rare occasions when he'd allowed himself to imagine what his life might have been if Emmannuel hadn't taken him - no, he decided a moment later, it was better. His own innocent teenaged imagination and Emmanuel's rough pawing had in no way prepared him for the raw heat of passion and love in Brad's eyes, lighting them from within like golden flames.

He'd meant to take his time, to tease his friend with a strip show, but the moment his hands undid the first button on his shirt he knew they were both too far gone for that. Teasing was for later, after they'd slaked the lust of years of frustrated waiting.

 _Fuck it,_ he decided with an impish grin. _The shirt's a write-off anyway..._ He got a firm grip on both side of the shirt and yanked once, sending buttons flying. The heat in Brad's eyes rose another notch, and he knew he'd made the right decision.

They met in a desperate kiss once more, the difference in their height forcing both of them into slightly awkward positions. Hands fumbled with belts and pant buttons - whose didn't really matter anymore. Somehow they managed to get free of the last of their clothing, and then they were tumbling onto the bed, limbs tangled and sweat already breaking out on their bodies.

"I've waited so long for this," Brad murmured as he drew away to worship Lukas' neck with his mouth. Lukas raised his hands to twine the finger through the short, crisp black locks of his friend's hair, moaning.

"No more waiting," he promised, his voice low and husky with passion. He opened the channel between them - skin to skin as they were, his empathic gift kicked in at full strength, swamping him with the raging desire Brad felt for him at that moment.

It made him groan and arch his back, grinding his hips up into Brad's as he fought off the urge to ejaculate then and there. Gritting his teeth he rode out the initial wave, then gathered up the sensation and projected it right back at his lover.

Brad gasped and convulsed, his teeth sinking into Lukas' shoulder. Lukas didn't mind - the painful sensation gave him an anchoring point, something to cling to that would distract him from losing all control. It was too early to end the game yet, and they were both exhausted enough that they were probably only going to get one go at it tonight.

Sensing that Brad was fighting a losing battle with his orgasm as well, he dug his fingers into the older man's shoulders, providing him with a distraction as well. Slowly Brad managed to relax his body, though random tremors still raced through him as one or the other of them would shift, starting the cycle of shared pleasure all over again.

"Now I know why... rumour had it that... empaths were the best lays to be found in the world," Brad murmured when he had enough control for an attempt at speech. Lukas chuckled, the sound breathy and strained.

"They also say that once you've been with an empath, you're ruined for ordinary sex," he reminded the precognitive gleefully. "You're stuck with me now."

Brad leaned down and kissed him fiercely, and there was something in his emotions that surprised Lukas. "You've always been the only one," Brad told him softly, making his eyes widen. "After all," the American's voice took on a slightly smug tone, "I've never settled for anything less than the best in my life."

Lukas was in shock, which seemed to be a common state for him that night. This time it was a pleasant shock, though. Even before he'd lost hope because of what Emmanuel had done to him, he'd always assumed that Brad would have other lovers before returning to claim Lukas from the Institute. After finding out that he'd spent the last however many years being only barely civil to his childhood best friend, he'd been certain Brad must have sought out other companionship. But linked together as they were, he couldn't mistake the American's meaning. Brad had waited for him, all this time? Even though his own visions had told him there was no hope for them?

 _*I love you,_ * he whispered, deepening the kiss and letting his empathy show Brad just how much he meant the words he said. _*I'm yours, forever. I don't care what happens, I won't leave you alone again. I'm sorry the kid has to suffer, but I don't love him. I love YOU._ *

He caught a swirl of guilt and remorse from Brad - his friend felt responsible for the kid, and was upset that he'd been put into this situation. For a moment he was afraid Brad might actually decide to find a way to switch him back to being this 'Schuldig' person... but then he felt the renewed determination and desperate need from his lover, and he sighed in relief.

 _You are mine,_ Brad projected at him, accompanied by a fierce possessiveness that made Lukas shiver in awe. If anyone else had projected something like that at him, he'd have been afraid - but from Brad, he felt only humbled that he could invoke that kind of reaction from his friend and lover. _You are mine, and I am yours, as well. As it should have been, before everything went to hell. We've been given a second chance, and be damned if I'll fuck it up._

They moved against each other, bodies sliding together, movements eased by the lubrication of sweat, the friction making them both moan. They were both desperate for release, yet neither wanted it to end yet. They'd waited so long they could hardly stand to wait another moment, but at the same time they wanted to savour this first experience as long as they physically could.

Something twinged in the back of his mind. It was minor enough at first that he almost overlooked it, but then he got a sharp stab of hurt and upset from somewhere deep in his own mind, near where his link with Brad was seated.

 _*What's wrong?_ * he asked his lover, but Brad only looked at him in surprise. Reading the emotions coming off the older man more carefully, Lukas confirmed that there was no sign of distress, other than the rather urgent needs his body was pressing on him. But that wasn't what he'd felt.

Brad shifted, rubbing their cocks together and making him groan, and he got another jab of the same pain as before. This time it was strong enough to make him gasp and pull away, frowning and rubbing his temple in an automatic gesture, though he knew it would do no good.

"Lukas, what is it?" Brad asked, his voice gone tense with concern and stiffled need as he rolled of the telepath and sat beside him in the bed. "Is it an attack?"

"I dunno, it's DEEP, whatever it is, and it hurts..." Lukas shook his head in annoyance. "But not like an attack, more like... I dunno, a lover's quarrel or something. Damn it, I'm shielded, I shouldn't be picking up anything but you!"

Brad started to say something, but Lukas held up a hand to silence him as something tugged slightly at his consciousness. It was... something pushing at his shields... no, from just UNDER his shields, nudging at his mind in an odd sort of telepathic 'knock'. He tried locking onto the sensation, and caught a strand of thought that had been deliberately projected his way by a nearby non-telepath.

 _*What the fuck..._ * he started to grumble, but the other person cut him off.

 _While I have, on occasion, appreciated the effect your link can have on my boyfriend, I'd appreciate it if you restrained yourself at the moment,_ a biting tenor snapped at him. After a moment, he managed to associate the 'flavour' of the mental voice with the blond Weiss, the one whose bed he was currently lying in. He 'felt' nearby, just on the other side of the wall, maybe. _Not only is Omi in no condition to deal with the arousal you're projecting at him, you're also breaking his heart. And I don't even want to think about what Nagi would do if he woke up and felt the same thing, and I have no doubt he would. So get a fucking grip on your libido, and just go to sleep already!_

With that the mental contact snapped closed, as if a shield had come down between them, though Lukas was certain Balinese didn't have any psychic abilities. Someone must have taught him how to hide his mind from casual scanning by a telepath. Come to think of it, although both the redhead and the blue-eyed kid who'd unlocked their cells had been easy to read, he hadn't been able to pick up anything from the boy who'd jerked him around earlier, either.

"What the fuck was that all about?" he complained softly, slumping back into Brad's arms. "None of them are psychic, are they?"

"Not to my knowledge," Brad replied after a startled pause. "Only Nagi, and his powers strictly affect the physical world. He's got no mind-based powers at all."

"Then why was one of them bitching at me about projecting at them?" Lukas said, eyes narrowing as he glared at the wall. "Unless they're empaths, they shouldn't be able to feel a damn thing. Hell, even if they're empaths, they shouldn't! I'm shielding, the only one who should be reading me is you, through the link!"

Understanding dawned on Brad's face, and he sighed, sliding back to lie on the pillows, pulling Lukas down to rest against his chest. "I know for a fact you have a link with Nagi," he said softly. "We used it to contact him earlier, remember? It wouldn't surprise me at all if you have a similar, albeit less powerful, link with Bombay. And given that there's only a very thin wall between us and them right now, it's entirely possible you were indeed projecting at him."

Lukas snarled, and punched his fist into the mattress. His body was throbbing, and he could sense Brad's need like a stinging spray of needles, grating against his raw empathy. "So what the fuck are we supposed to do?"

"YOU are going to go take a cold shower," Brad said, twisting in a lithe move that dumped Lukas out of the bed onto the floor. He hadn't been expecting it, or he might have been able to counter it - as it was, the move was a shock. He sat there, blinking up at his lover. "I'm going to stay here and NOT join you, or that shower won't stay cold very long."

Lukas narrowed his eyes. "I've got a better idea... you go take a cold shower and I'LL stay here and jerk off," he snapped, irritated. "Or at the very least, I'll go take a WARM shower and jerk off, it'll have the same result."

"No, it won't, Lukas," Brad corrected him gently, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Any sexual activity on your part will probably be picked up by them. There's no sense in tormenting them with what they can't have." He shook his head. "You and I can wait until we're in better conditions for our first time - we've waited this long, after all. And I'm NOT planning to jerk off, actually... I'm going to trance down and try to sort through some of these visions. The sexual tension will help me stay anchored in the present while I do it, and if I don't, my dreams tonight will be nothing but one tangled vision after another."

Lukas had to admit that made sense, but he didn't have to like it. Grumbling under his breath, he stood and made his way to the bathroom. He'd have showed off his assets to make Brad regret what he was missing, but if he knew the precognitive, the older man had already started the process of entering a deep trance and his efforts would go to waste. Brad was nothing if not efficient with his time.

He made the water as cold as he could stand it, and bit his lip to keep from yelping in an undignified manner when he stepped in. Old wives' tales aside, cold water didn't help much with arousal this strong, especially since every time he thought he MIGHT be able to go back out, the knowledge that he'd be returning to see Brad still naked and very, very attractive would make him hard again.

He was tempted to say 'fuck it' and just jerk off and get it over with, but some shrivelled remnant of his conscience stopped him. If those two kids really were linked to him, there was no way he could shield tightly enough to prevent his emotions from leaking over onto them at this distance. Nagi had been more than half dead, and while Lukas had no intention of taking his place as the boy's 'Master', neither did he want to add to the kid's misery deliberately. Bombay had been better off, but still looked exhausted and injured, and if the pain that had underlain his anger earlier was any indication, he really did love Lukas - well, Schuldig - a lot. Forcing him to feel Lukas' desire for another man was nothing short of cruel.

Sighing, he finally resorted to some calming exercises he'd learned at the Institute, trying not to remember the circumstances Emmanuel had used to test his ability to stay calm under duress. That worked, and he was finally able to get out of the freezing shower.

He found Brad sitting cross-legged on the bed, uncaring of his nakedness. Lukas took a moment to lean against the door again, just admiring the sharp planes and clean lines of his friend and lover's body. Brad was truly stunning, with the physique of a martial artist who used his skills for survival, not merely to show off in a dojo. With his eyes closed, the only contrast to his pale skin was the starkness of his dark hair, lying carelessly against his forehead and cheeks. Lukas gave in to the urge to step forward and brush it away from the soft skin, knowing that it wouldn't disturb the precognitive if he was still in deep trance.

To his surprise, Brad gave a little sigh and opened his eyes, looking up at Lukas with a soft, welcoming smile. "Everything is still too confusing, though I think at least I'll be able to sleep now without being overwhelmed," the precognitive confessed, moving over to make room for Lukas in the bed.

Lukas slid in under the covers, lying down and tugging Brad to lie down with him. When they were settled, with Lukas comfortably in Brad's arms, he asked, "Were you at least able to see what to do next?"

"No," Brad replied, sounding frustrated. "The immediate future is split half a dozen different ways, and there's something important that I either can't find, or can't affect enough to matter. One thing is clear - Emmanuel will be back in the country tomorrow, and it won't take him long to find us. I fear your theory is correct, and he has a tag on you."

"He'll be able to track me no matter where I go, then," Lukas concluded grimly. "It'll just be a matter of time. Do we have any chance?"

"If we leave here and face him alone, just the two of us, we've got about a twenty-five percent chance of defeating him," Brad told him. "If he wins, either of us could die, both of us could die, and either or both of us could be captured and brought back to the Institute." Lukas shivered - that wasn't a possibility he wanted to contemplate.

"If we keep Weiss with us, there's a much stronger probability that we'll win, approaching a hundred percent," Brad continued. "For non-psychics, they've got a good track record at fighting powerful psychics. They didn't have much luck against Schwartz, of course," the American's voice was full of arrogant superiority. "But they did quite well against the Estet Elders, eliminating two of them and sending the third running for shelter."

"So why are you confused about what to do next?" Lukas asked, blinking. "Obviously, we stick with them, and we win."

There was a long silence, and his eyes narrowed. "Spit it out," he ordered. "You see something happening on that branch that you don't like, don't you?"

"If we stay with them, we'll defeat Emmanuel," Brad repeated. "But the method of defeating him varies. There's a small chance we can simply kill him with physical weapons, in which case, there's no problem. There's an equally small chance that Nagi will have recovered enough by the time he finds us to just crush him, also causing no repercussions, except possibly by setting back his recovery by a few days or weeks."

"And the most likely probability is?" Lukas prompted, feeling fear clench his heart, turning his guts to icy water.

"That you'll end up facing off against him," Brad admitted reluctantly. "And that's the part where I cannot see how to affect the outcome in our favour. Whatever it is that happens between the two of you then, there's nothing I can do to sway the results."

"But you said there was nearly a hundred percent possibility of defeating him," Lukas reminded him, surprised. "So where's the catch?"

"The 'catch' is that if you face off against him, there's approximately a seventy-five percent chance that you'll destroy each other," Brad whispered, his arms tightening around Lukas abruptly. "He'll be dead, but so will you. With a strong possibility that you'll lose control entirely, and take the rest of us with you. And I can't for the life of me see how to change it!"


	13. Chapter 13

Ken walked along, not making any particular effort to be quiet. It would have required far too much of his attention - beneath his boots, dry leaves rustled and twigs snapped with every step. Instead, he concentrated on scanning the area, looking for anything at all out of place.

He passed Youji, going the other way on his own patrol route, and they exchanged waves and 'all clear' signs. Nagi was still confined to bed, hardly able to do more than sit up to eat and occasionally stumble to the bathroom and back, but the rest of them were taking it in turns to patrol the area in pairs.

Crawford had warned them that his visions weren't fully accurate yet, and couldn't be counted on to predict the exact moment this 'Emmanuel' would arrive. The best he'd been able to tell them was 'soon'. Omi had made the decision to move the whole group of them out here to Villa White, to ensure no innocent neighbours would be caught in the crossfire that might ensue.

Personally, Ken wasn't sure why they were still helping Schwartz at all. Sure, Crawford had told them that their chances of defeating this guy skyrocketed with Weiss' help, but he'd also - reluctantly - admitted that there was a possibility not all of them would live through the experience. Given their way, Ken and Aya would both have voted to cast Crawford and Lukas off and cut their loses. This wasn't Weiss' fight.

Except that, in an odd way, it was. There was a tacit understanding in place that Nagi would be staying with Weiss, no matter what Crawford and Lukas chose to do, so long as Lukas continued to refuse to take on his role as the boy's Master. Ken could see the logic of that - even Aya wasn't arguing anymore with the idea of taking the boy in. He needed SOMEone to look after him, and if it wasn't Lukas, it might as well be Omi and Youji. At least the kid would be with people who knew and cared for him.

But hurt as he was, Nagi would still never forgive them if they didn't make a real effort to help Lukas. For that matter, Ken wasn't sure Omi was capable of turning away from the telepath, though he'd seen the telltale signs that his friend had been crying, the night after their initial confrontation with Crawford and Lukas. It took a lot to make Omi cry - losing Schuldig was evidently harder on him than Ken would have thought.

So here they were, patrolling the perimeters of the Villa, trying to find some way to get an advantage over a telepath that even Lukas had admitted he didn't particularly want to face down in combat.

Their advantage lay in numbers, Crawford had told them. Emmanuel was only capable of focussing his powers on so many people at one time. The question was whether he would be stupid and try to spread his powers over all of them, to stop them - or whether he would be smart and focus on just a few of them, concentrating his efforts. If it was the latter, then some of them would probably die before the rest of them could kill the telepath.

That was, of course, assuming Emmanuel came after them alone. They had no assurances of that, although Crawford had said there was at least a strong probability that he would. If he had help - well, they'd still win, the precognitive had said, but some of them would definitely die.

His searching gaze saw the gleam of light through the foliage that was Villa White. Under other circumstances they might have left the Villa dark, trying to pretend it was unoccupied, but against a powerful telepath there was little point. He'd know exactly how many of them there were, and approximate where they were, by the time he came near the property's borders.

He shoved his glove back and checked his watch, and was surprised to see that it was earlier than he'd thought. He still had time for another round of the grounds before Omi and Aya would take over for him and Youji. He stepped out of the trees long enough to catch Omi's eye where the boy was watching out a window, and gave the 'all clear'. Omi nodded, and returned to watching the treeline.

Stepping back into the trees, Ken continued his patrol. He didn't pass Youji this time - the playboy must have cut around the front of the Villa rather than the back on his pass through. Just to be sure, though, he reached up and triggered his comm.

"Siberian to Balinese, location?"

"Just east of the villa - I was about to call you," Youji's voice came quietly back to him. "No worries, I guess we just missed each other on the crossover."

Ken started to agree, but the word froze in his throat, almost choking him. _What the..._ He struggled to speak, but it was as if his vocal chords had been completely paralysed. No, he realized a moment later - his BODY had been paralysed! Sweating, he struggled to move, but couldn't so much as twitch a muscle.

"Siberian, did you hear me?" Youji asked, concerned. When Ken still didn't answer, he heard the snapping hiss and crackle that meant the channel had been opened to all the comm sets. "Can anybody reach Siberian? He asked me for a location check but never gave a roger..."

Ken's vision was starting to go grey at the edges from lack of air. He was still breathing, but being unable to move, the breaths he was able to take were very shallow, not enough to keep him conscious for long. Dimly he was aware of first Omi, then Aya trying to reach him. He fought with all his might to say something, to warn them, but all that came out was a tiny squeak.

Something ghosted across his mind, the sensation similar to the touch of a butterfly's wings on his skin. _*Shit,*_ he heard Lukas snarl. _*That's him! He's got Siberian trapped in his own mind!_ * There was something close to panic and fear in the German's mental voice, which made Ken start to panic too. Crawford had said that if Emmanuel was given the chance to focus on one or two people, those people would die... and right now he didn't have any targets except Ken.

Apparently he wasn't the only one thinking along those lines. _*Everyone, out to Siberian's position, now!_ * Crawford snapped, using Lukas to relay the order telepathically. _*Emmanuel is strictly a line-of-sight psychic, he must be somewhere within sight of Siberian. We need to break his concentration before he crushes Siberian's mind!_ *

"I'm almost there," Youji snarled into the headset, and Ken was vaguely aware of the sound of someone crashing through the woods nearby. Was it getting darker? Or just harder to breathe? He could feel his own heartbeat, pounding in his temples like a jackhammer trying to break through his skull. He'd never been aware before of just how fragile the skull was, how easily a little pressure from inside could break through it - it felt as if someone had inserted the nozzle from an air pump into his brain, and was inflating it until it threatened to burst.

Then suddenly some of the pressure eased, and he was able to move again. He wasn't capable of doing much other than collapsing to his knees and gasping for air, though, his head still throbbing hard enough to make him gasp with pain on each pulse.

He heard a choking noise, and from somewhere he found the energy to lift his head enough to see. Youji was slumped against a tree, his wire tangled around several branches, as if he'd tried to catch something in it and missed. The playboy didn't look much better than Ken felt, but neither did he seem to be in danger of passing out in the immediate future - they'd succeeded in splitting Emmanuel's attention, if nothing else.

There was a familiar sharp sound and then the whiz of a crossbow bolt flying through the air. The dull 'thunk' as it landed told Ken that it had hit wood, not flesh, but Omi was already setting up another bolt as he ran up and skidded to a halt beside Ken. He fired again, then dropped the crossbow and grabbed for his darts.

Aya flashed by Ken's other side, shouting in fury as he raised his katana to strike. To Ken's amazement he, too, struck a tree rather than his intended target, and under other circumstances he might have laughed at the look of enraged confusion on his lover's face as he tried to tug the katana free of the tree.

Omi fired his darts, but he was already staggering under the pressure of the telepath's mind, and they didn't even come close to their target. Ken wasn't sure where the target WAS, exactly - one moment he was certain he saw a shadowy human form to his left, and the next he was equally sure he'd caught a glimpse of pale cloth in the moonlight on his right.

"He's using his telepathy to confuse you," Crawford shouting, already firing his gun as he charged up behind Weiss. His gun clicked empty, and he ejected the clip and slammed another one home with a cool efficiency that Ken had to admire. "He's not where you think he is... just strike at random, Lukas is going to try to break the effect!"

Ken caught sight of the redheaded telepath leaning against a tree just short of the line of fire, eyes closed and sweat standing out clearly on his face even in the dim night time light. That whisper-soft touch brushed over Ken's mind again, and suddenly it was a little easier to breathe again.

Everyone was moving as if their bodies were immersed in something more resistant to movement than air, or as if it was taking more than the usual amount of concentration to get their bodies to cooperate with their mental commands. They'd lucked out, then... Emmanuel had chosen to try to confuse them all, rather than targeting one or two of them at a time. Ken was heartened. That meant there was a damn good chance they were all going to survive this.

He staggered to his feet, clenching his fist to trigger his claw as he looked around for something to strike at. He was still seeing multiple momentary shadowy flashes that he now knew were nothing more than phantasms, meant to make them wear themselves out while leaving Emmanuel untouched. But where was the real telepath? He'd want to be somewhere safely away from where a chance shot might strike him, but Crawford had said he needed to be able to see his targets...

 _Of course..._ Ken felt like an idiot for not realizing before. "He's in the trees!" he shouted, lifting his gaze and scanning wildly. He saw a brief flash of light off of metal in the highest boughs of the tree, but before he could point it out to someone with a distance weapon, the weight of the world abruptly came crashing back in on him.

 _Oh shit..._ was all he had time to think before he collapsed, gasping like a stranded fish. There was no AIR, where had all the air gone? They were out of doors, there was no way someone could have taken the air away, but he felt as if there was nothing entering his lungs each time he tried to draw breath. His heart was beating triple time, and all he could see was blackness. _He changed his tactic, he decided to take us out one at a time after all... looks like I'm going to be the one to die..._

 _*Oh, no you're not,_ * an angry nasal voice snapped in the back of his mind. _*Not on MY fucking watch! Take this, you child-fucking bastard! Let's see how you like being the one who's mind-raped for a change!*_ *

Rage and hatred poured through Ken's mind, the fires of it burning away the darkness wherever it touched. It hurt like a bitch, and he couldn't help screaming, but at least his lungs were taking in air again. Lukas' thoughts were leaking over into Ken's, and somehow he knew that the German was taking advantage of a hole in Emmanuel's shields created by the link he'd established to try to crush Ken's mind. A less powerful telepath than Lukas wouldn't have been able to do this at all, and Emmanuel had never thought to protect himself against it.

Once he grasped the gist of what Lukas was doing, Ken did his best not to fight the telepath's presence in his mind. The more energy Lukas needed to spend to suppress Ken's psyche, the less he had to fight Emmanuel with. But how the hell did you keep yourself from fighting the invasion of a foreign mind into yours?

 _*Think of something innocuous,_ * Lukas told him gruffly. _*Something that takes a lot of your concentration, that will distract you from what I'm doing. Then just hang on for the ride - I promise I'll do my best not to do any more damage than I absolutely have to._ *

Ken winced at that last statement, but obediently tried to think of something to occupy his mind with. It didn't take him long... there was one subject that could always distract him, no matter what situation he was in. _Let's see... highest scoring player in J-League history..._

 

* * *

Lukas sensed the boy's mind withdraw and focus on something suitably mind-numbing - sports stats, he was vaguely aware. He stopped paying attention to the occupant of the mind he was borrowing, and concentrated on Emmanuel instead.

The other telepath was frantically trying to pull away from Ken, trying to close the minor gap in his shields, but it was already too late. Lukas had a foot in the door, so to speak, and he was more than strong enough to force the hole wide enough to allow the rest of him in. Emmanuel fought a brief, losing struggle, before abandoning his outermost defences and retreating behind his inner shields.

Lukas seized the chance, throwing himself into the breach and leaving Ken's mind behind entirely. It had served its purpose - now Ken's recovery would be a matter of the boy's strength of will. He might spend his life as a vegetable, or he might be just fine - either way, Lukas didn't have the time or luxury to worry about him right now.

He'd been inside Emmanuel's mind before, far too many times to count. It was a filthy place, even out here in the fringes, riddled with perverted lusts and desires. How many times had Emmanuel forced him to open himself to the older telepath's mind, so that Lukas would be better able to anticipate what Emmanuel wanted from him during sex? At the time, Lukas had despised every moment. Now he was almost grateful - the Instructor's formidable inner shields would probably have stymied a telepath less familiar with Emmanuel's mind.

Lukas knew just where to push, where to tease, to trigger certain reactions in Emmanuel's body. Arousal was as much a mental condition as a physical one, and there were ways of stimulating it from within the mind than any telepath worth his salt could take advantage of. Emmanuel fought him, but the older telepath had conditioned his own mind into accepting these sorts of touches as permissible, and a signal to lower his defences enough for his victim to read further into his desires.

Lukas pounced on the weakness the moment it presented itself, and turned his mind into a driving blade formed of will and hatred, spearing straight for the centre of Emmanuel's mind. Now it was a matter of power versus power, and there was no question which of the two of them was more powerful. Emmanuel had the experience and the finesse, but no telepath in history had even come close to Lukas for sheer, raw power.

Once he reached the centre of Emmanuel's mind, he started to 'expand' himself, pushing outwards and squeezing Emmanuel in the confines of his own brain. He'd won, he gloated, smirking inwardly. He'd beaten the chances of Brad's prediction - it was only a matter of moments now until he crushed Emmanuel's mind beneath the power of his telepathy, and there was nothing the older man could do to stop him or hurt him.

It wasn't what he'd expected, killing someone telepathically - he'd never done it before, or at least, he didn't remember ever doing it before. Presumably he'd have been trained properly in the technique before being released from the Institute into the field. The harder he pushed against Emmanuel's mind, the harder it became to keep the border between their minds clearly defined.

To his distress, he found bits and pieces of Emmanuel's psyche leaking over onto him. He hastily shored up his shields in those areas and pushed harder. Forget about gloating, now he just wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible. This... was not a pleasant sensation, not at all.

The barrier wavered again, and he started picking up visions, memories of physical sensations like sight, sound, even touch or smell or taste. Snarling he shoved them away, not wanting anything of this man's mind left behind in his. He got a flash of people screaming, running in a fancy ballroom - not something he remembered, so it had to be Emmanuel's. He tried to shove it away with the rest, but it wouldn't go.

He realized his mistake now - by pushing from the inside, he was putting pressure on himself as well as Emmanuel with every shove. He should have pushed from the outside in, squeezing him into a little ball - but would that have been any easier on him? More visions flowed past him as the pressure increased. Visions, memories... his? Or Emmanuel's?

That same party, so many well-dressed Asian people. Dekane was there... he could feel the pressure of a mind against his, or was it his mind against someone else's? Something had gone wrong, he'd tried to pull out, and...

And God, the screaming, the panicking minds, all pushing against his, threatening to overwhelm him. Somewhere, distantly, he was aware of his physical body being wracked with tremors, but he wasn't sure if it was happening now, or in the past. So many people... so many deaths... dragging him down with them, and oh gods, he didn't want to die...

Who was he? He couldn't remember. There was someone he was supposed to kill... now? Then? He couldn't remember. All he could remember was the screaming, and the pain, and the panic, and how bad he'd wanted it all to just shut the fuck up and leave him alone...


	14. Chapter 14

When the shadow illusions had abruptly dissipated, leaving the Greek telepath clearly visible up in the trees, Omi immediately reached for more darts and drew his hand back to throw them.

He was hit from behind and the side by a much larger body in a flying tackle, and he went down in shock. Crawford very nearly got a lethal dose of poison jabbed into his arm as Omi twisted to defend himself from his attacker - luckily for the American, Omi recognized him at the last second and dropped the darts.

"Hold your fire!" the precognitive snapped, loud enough for all of them to hear. "Lukas has him locked in a mental duel - if you kill one of them right now, you kill them both!"

Omi glanced over to where Lukas was slumped against a tree, staring sightlessly ahead, then back up to their enemy. He realized the older telepath was in exactly the same position, clearly oblivious to the world around him. At that moment he was just slightly grateful that neither Ken nor Aya had long-distance weapons of any kind - he wasn't entirely certain he'd put it past them to kill Emmanuel and claim later that they hadn't understood what Crawford was trying to say. Having Lukas as a casualty wouldn't matter a great deal to either of them.

Crawford stood and offered him a hand up - after a moment, Omi accepted it, dusting himself off and looking around. "Is there anyone else?" he asked the precognitive.

"No," Crawford shook his head. "All the futures where we faced anyone in addition to Emmanuel are now closed. He came alone. Now it's up to Lukas."

There was a startled exclamation from one side, then the sound of metal hitting the ground with a dull thud. "Ken!" Aya exclaimed, dropping to his knees beside his lover and taking him by the shoulders. "Ken, wake up!"

One look made Omi's heart plunge into his stomach - Ken had the same far-away, glassy-eyed look as the two telepaths. "Is he still breathing?" he asked urgently, trotting over to Aya's side. "Abyssinian, is he still alive?"

"He's breathing, his heart is beating, but..." Aya looked at his lover's blank expression and shuddered. "There's... there's nothing inside..." Omi put a hand on Aya's shoulder and squeezed gently, and for once the stoic redhead accepted the tacit offer of comfort. Omi knew this had to be far, far too similar for Aya to seeing his beloved little sister in a coma, knowing she might never wake up.

He glanced up, starting to look around for his own lover, but Youji dropped down on Ken's other side before he could even start to worry. "Is he going to be okay?" the playboy asked Crawford, and the rest of them turned to see his expression when he answered.

The American hesitated. "I don't know," he admitted finally. "There are too many variables in play at the moment. He IS still in there - his mind wasn't shattered, just driven into hiding. It's a matter of whether it can be coaxed back out again." He glanced over his shoulder at his partner. "If Lukas survives this battle, he should be able to bring him back with little trouble. If not - it depends on how stubborn he is, and how much effort the three of you put into calling him back."

Omi didn't even need to look at the others to know their answer would be the same as his - they'd all sit by Ken's bedside for the next ten years, if that was what it took, so long as they knew there was a chance it would bring their friend back to them.

But hopefully it wouldn't matter - Omi would put money on Schuldig against any other telepath anytime, regardless of the state of his memories. But even as he thought that, there was a choked cry from behind them, then a scream that was not a sound that any human throat should have been capable of producing.

He turned and stared - Lukas was curled on the ground, tucked up in an almost foetal position, his hands clamped over his ears as he screamed. "No..." Crawford breathed, and there was as much pain in his expression in that moment as there had been in Nagi's the other day. "God, no..."

"What's happening?" he demanded, wincing when his voice came out high and shrill. He was riding the edge of hysteria, he knew - too much had happened in too short a time. "What's wrong with him?"

"It triggered the memory his mind has been running from all these years," Crawford replied, his voice broken and eyes narrowed. "I was afraid it might be something connected to a mental battle like this - killing with his powers is something Schuldig always flatly refused to do, though he himself admitted he didn't have a good reason for not wanting to. His mind is destroying itself under the strain. And if we're very unlucky, he might take us with him."

Omi's eyes widened and he held his breath, searching within his mind for the tug that always signalled the activation of his link with Schuldig. There was nothing, though - nothing but the empty blankness that had been there since Schwartz had first been attacked.

"What do we do?" he asked helplessly after a moment. "There must be SOMEthing..."

"Get Ken out of here and taken care of," Crawford ordered, slowly edging towards the writhing telepath. "Emmanuel is already dead. I'm going to try to reach him - the link between us might let me get close enough to touch his mind. If so, there's a chance I can talk him down."

Omi caught the American's arm, giving him a hard look. "If you link with him, what happens if he self-destructs?" He knew the answer before he even asked, from the look on the older man's face. "And what are the chances you'll be able to bring him back?"

"Slim to none," Crawford admitted, yanking his arm out of Omi's grip and stepping forward again. "But I have to try." Before Omi could stop him again, he'd reached Lukas and dropped to his knees beside him, drawing the shaking telepath against his chest and cradling him like an injured child.

Omi stood there for a moment more, staring at them. Crawford had as much as admitted he was committing suicide. _Would I do differently, if it were Youji's life at stake?_ he asked himself. Then another thought blindsided him... _Would I do differently, if it were Schuldig and not Lukas?_

"Balinese, Abyssinian, take Siberian back to the Villa and get him comfortable. Make sure you check him for injuries and signs of shock," Omi ordered, making his decision. Crawford had kept his voice low enough that he didn't think any of the others would have heard what he'd said. "I'm going to help Crawford try to snap Lukas out of this fit before he hurts himself."

He stepped forward. He didn't dare turn around - if he met Youji's eyes, his lover would be able to tell that he was hiding something, something awful. _I'm sorry, Youji,_ he mentally begged his lover for forgiveness. _I love you with all my heart... but I love him, too, and I can't let it go like this. If Crawford has a chance of saving him, maybe the two of us together will have a better chance._

He wasn't a telepath, or even a psychic. He had no idea how to go about insinuating himself in a telepathic link. Schuldig had always been the one to draw him into the link, he hadn't invited himself. He crouched beside Crawford, who had his eyes closed and was apparently oblivious to the world around him. Reaching out, he shifted some of the telepath's weight into his grip, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. Plunging his consciousness deep inside his mind as Schuldig had taught him, he searched for that place where part of him trailed away into the distance, the place where his mind was inextricably linked with his Master's.

The moment he 'touched' it, he screamed, his entire body wracked with pain, terror, and a horrible sense of suffocation. If this was what Crawford was feeling, he had no idea how the precognitive had managed to stay impassive through the experience.

Then rational thought was lost to him, as he found himself caught in a screaming stampeded of maddened, terrified people. There were dead bodies everywhere, and more piling up as the mob crushed themselves to death against the walls or in the too-narrow doorways. Every death pulled at him, sucked out a tiny bit of his soul, trying to drag him down with it.

He struggled to pull himself away, to give himself a tiny bit of breathing room. Something latched onto him by the proverbial scruff of the neck, hauling him up until he was watching the scene from above, rather than from within.

 _*You psychotic little idiot, what the hell do you think you're doing?*_ It wasn't a 'voice' in the sense that Omi was used to telepathy being clear words strung on a mental thought - instead it was more of an impression of intent, anger, and worry, with an overtone that conveyed that general sentiment. After a moment, he was able to 'see' a vague, shadowy outline of Crawford - except it was a much younger Crawford, as he might have looked in his late teens or early twenties.

 _*You're not the only one who loves him, damn you!*_ Omi snapped back, the words a wash of anger/pain and hurt, mixed with anguish and fear and desperation. _*I don't care if he never remembers me, I just want him alive and happy!*_

He sensed hesitation from Crawford, then reluctant assent. _*You realize we're both doomed,_ * the precognitive informed him almost cheerfully, clearly resigned to his fate. _*He's strong enough that we'll never break free of him, and if there were a way to snap him out of this, I'd have Seen it years ago when I first tried to find a way to restore his memories._ *

 _*Yeah, and there's no possible way four non-psychics should have been able to defeat even one of Estet's Elders,_ * Omi shot back. _*Just chalk this down as my 'impossible thing before breakfast' for the day.*_ That actually startled a laugh from the American.

 _*We have to try to reach him,_ * Crawford said, gesturing down at the centre of the maelstrom of death and destruction below them. Omi squinted, and could just make out a teenager, younger than he was, with short-cropped orange hair at the centre of the mess. The boy's wide green eyes were open, staring blankly into nothing, and every time he screamed, someone else in the room died.

 _That's Schuldig?_ he found himself marvelling, taking a moment to just study the teen. If someone had asked him to picture the German without his long fall of red hair, he wouldn't have been able to do it. He certainly never would have recognized his lover's younger self if Crawford hadn't pointed him out, even with the clue of the distinctive colouring.

They both plunged back into the mess, fighting against the tide of people trying to stampede the exits. There seemed to be no end to the people, and after a moment Omi realized that he was seeing the same people go by again and again. _*It's a memory loop,_ * Crawford told him, shouting over the cacophony. _*We need to break him out of it before his mind destroys itself to escape!_ *

Taking a deep breath, though he knew he didn't actually have a physical body to breathe with here, Omi ducked his head and started squirming between the never-ending stream of bodies. Once he had the pattern memorized, he was able to make better progress. A step to the left here, then two paces forward, then a quick turn to the right...

Finally he was in the clear space around the telepath's shivering body. Well, clear of live people - there were bodies scattered everywhere, and they all had the same face. He glanced at Crawford, who had followed him through the crowd. The American squinted for a moment, then shrugged.

 _*Dekane. He was the fire arms Instructor for the Institute. From some things Lukas has said, I think he might have been present on Lukas' first field assignment. Presumably he died here - that would have affected Lukas very strongly, they seem to have been close._ *

Omi nodded, and stepped over the bodies until he reached the boy. Lukas at this age was a bit taller than he was, but just as slender in body. They probably could have worn the same size clothes, he thought with surprise. _*Schuldig... Lukas!_ * he corrected himself, reaching out to touch the boy's shoulder. _*Lukas, it's all right, this isn't really happening! It's all a memory...*_

The moment he touched the telepath, everything changed. With a sickening drop that nearly cost him his dinner, he found himself in a place of endless... nothing. Not blackness, because blackness was something. Not vacuum, because vacuum was something. This place literally held nothing, except for his mental image of himself, the boy he was holding, and Crawford on the boy's other side. _*Wha..._ *

 _*I... don't know,_ * Crawford admitted, startled. _*I've never seen anything like this. I think... I think he's lost, and so we've become lost with him._ *

 _*How do we find the way out?_ * Omi asked, looking around. The nothingness was hurting his eyes, making him want to squeeze them shut. The human brain just wasn't set up to deal with the concept of true nothingness.

 _*I don't know,_ * Crawford repeated, quietly, sounding more than a little lost himself. Omi looked over at him. He didn't just look younger, he sounded younger, too. Gone was the imperious, always-in-control, confident leader of Schwartz. Was this how he thought of himself? Was this how he had looked when he had been friends with Lukas the first time? He didn't look too much older than Omi was. Impulsively, Omi held out his free hand.

After a startled moment, Crawford reached out and accepted it. The three of them floated there, forming a triangle. It was almost appropriate, Omi thought to himself. Crawford on one side, representing the telepath's past and the side of him that was Lukas. Omi on the other, to represent the telepath's more recent history, and the part of him that was Schuldig. The only thing that would have been more appropriate was if it were Nagi, rather than Omi...

As if the thought had summoned him, there was a brush against his mind, then a pale, slender hand slid over his own, twining weak fingers around his hand and Lukas' both. Omi looked up in surprise, to see that Nagi had done the same on the other side, holding tightly to Crawford's hand on that side. _*Nagi! What are you doing here?_ *

 _*Greeneyes brought me,*_ the pet replied quietly. _*He said to tell you that if you don't get yourself the hell back there in one piece, he'll take it out of your hide.*_ That made Omi laugh, weakly. _*I think he'd have come himself, but he doesn't have a link to Gebieter like we do._ *

 _*You're both fools,*_ Crawford told them irritably, but Omi felt his grip squeeze a little tighter. _*Now all three of us are trapped here.*_

 _*I'd rather die than live without him,*_ Nagi said, all of the conviction he'd gained in the past few days strong in his voice. It made Crawford blink and look at him in surprise. Under different circumstances, Omi might have giggled at the precognitive's shocked expression. _*But I've come this far, I'm not going to give up now without a fight. Let's wake him._ *

 _*How?_ * Omi demanded. He nodded at the unconscious boy they were all holding onto. _*He hasn't responded to anything yet. He may be gone already._ *

 _*He's still here,*_ Nagi assured him. _*Or we wouldn't all be connected like this. His telepathy is locked in a loop - so let's use empathy to break it._ *

Crawford looked like he'd been shot. _*Empathy, of course! We're all close enough to him, have strong enough feelings for him that together, we might be able to break through the loop by projecting at him._ *

 _*And if that doesn't work, we can always try stripping down and screwing,_ * Omi suggested, half seriously. _*I never did know him to be able to sleep through someone doing THAT right next to him._ *

 _*Concentrate,*_ Nagi reminded them all sharply. They all closed their eyes, and focused hard on the ways in which they each individually loved the man they were risking their lives to save.

For Omi, the easiest memories to recall were the ones from early in their relationship. The day Schuldig had first claimed him, saving him from being gang raped. The first time he'd gone to a club with his new Master willingly, what he'd learned there about pain and pleasure and the way the two could mix. More importantly, what he'd felt when Nagi and Schuldig had accepted him into their relationship without question, without hesitation, and rebuilt his self-esteem from the ground up.

Nagi had so many memories to chose from it was hard to pick, so he simply let them all swirl through him in a collage. The time and effort Schuldig had put into retraining his pet, carefully leading him into being able to make his own decisions, praising and coaxing him and never, ever punishing him except in ways they both found enjoyable. With Schuldig, Nagi had learned that life didn't have to be painful, and that there were good Masters out there as well as bad.

Brad's contribution was a welter of memories of Lukas as a child - the awkward, half-finished look of him as a young teenager, the way he would flush and lose his temper over the least little bit of teasing. The way their friendship had grown, until Brad had received the vision that told him of the possibility of winning free of the Institute, with Lukas at his side. The utter devastation he'd felt when he'd found Lukas again as Schuldig, and realized that any chance of having his friend back was gone. And finally, the heart-wrenching decision between keeping Lukas for himself once Emmanuel had restored that part of the telepath's memories, or giving him up once more for Nagi's sake.

Somewhere the memories and outpouring of feelings met in the middle, swirled together, and slowly sank into the boy now lying cradled between the three of them. Green eyes opened slowly, at first staring unseeing at the nothingness, then turning to each of them in turn.

 _*Brad?*_ his mental voice was hesitant, almost shy. _*Brad, I... I never knew... how strongly you felt..._ *

 _*Now you do,_ * the American replied, his own voice not quiet steady. _*I have always loved you, my friend, and I always will._ *

Deep inside, Omi felt a sharp pang of disappointment. He'd almost hoped, with two of them projecting memories of Schuldig rather than Lukas, that it would be Schuldig who would return to them. But at the same time, he was torn between sorrow for Nagi and happiness for Brad. Now that he had some idea of just what the precognitive had been through, waiting for Lukas... how could he deny him a chance to be happy at last?

The emotion must have drawn the telepath's attention to him, because suddenly the green eyes were fixed on him. _*Katzchen,_ * the German murmured, his voice turning the word into a caress, as he always did. _*Always putting other before yourself. You worry about breaking Liebe's heart, or Brad's, but not your own? I felt what you sent me, Katze. And you know you're always welcome, wherever I am. I love you, Katzchen.*_

Omi stared at him, eyes wide, hardly daring to even think for fear that the wrong emotion might shatter this dream. He'd said... he'd called him... but then, did that mean...

The telepath's attention had already turned away from him, and he tugged his hand free of Omi's. Omi let go, and he raised it to brush the hair out of Nagi's face. _*Liebechen,_ * the telepath murmured, the love in his voice clear. _*My Liebe. Can you ever forgive me for hurting you, abandoning you? I wouldn't blame you if you didn't... I broke my promise to you._ *

Nagi said nothing for a long moment, just staring in disbelief, much as Omi imagined he had done. _*Gebieter?*_ he finally managed, his mental voice little more than a squeak. _*It's... it's really you? You don't hate me any more?_ *

Schuldig... it had to be Schuldig... pulled the telekinetic into the mental equivalent of a strong hug. _*Never,_ * he swore fiercely. _*Not even when I didn't understand, I never hated you. I'm so proud of you, Liebe. You did so well, you've been so strong._ *

Nagi flung himself more fully into his Master's 'arms', weeping helplessly. Omi turned to Crawford, who now had a sort of resigned expression on his face as he tried to pull his hand free of Schuldig's. To Omi's surprise, the telepath tightened his grip and turned a predatory smile on his leader. _*Where do you think you're going? I waited how many years to get my hands on you again? I'm not letting you go any time soon, Brad._ * He looked at Nagi. _*You don't mind sharing me with Brad, right Liebe?_ *

Astonished at the very thought, Nagi shook his head, making Schuldig laugh. _*So unless you're going to object to me keeping Liebchen as my sub, I think you're pretty much stuck with me,_ * he informed the American almost gleefully.

Now it was Crawford's turn to gape openmouthed at the telepath. _*You... which ARE you, Lukas or Schuldig?_ *

Green eyes softened. _*Both, old friend. Both. The worst has happened, I faced the memory I was running from, and it broke me. But the three of you, together, brought me back. I'll bet you never bothered to check and see if there was a way to get my memories back after Omi came into my life, did you?_ *

 _*No,_ * Crawford admitted thoughtfully. _*I'd long since given up by then. It never occurred to me that having more people with a link to you might make a difference._ *

Schuldig laughed. _*Just goes to show you're not the all-seeing omniscient being you'd like people to think, hmm? Now, I suggest we all get back to our physical bodies before your teammates start having fits, Katzchen. And if I remember correctly, I need to pull Hidaka back into his head, don't I? Won't take me more than five seconds.*_

Omi joined Nagi in hugging their lover tightly, tugging on Crawford's hand and dragging the older man in after him. _*Anything you want, Gebieter. After all, you ARE the Master!_ *

Glittering green eyes looked sideways at Crawford. The American raised an eyebrow. _*Not in this lifetime,_ * he said coolly, his mental tone as much amusement as refusal. _*You may keep as many subs as you can handle, but unless you're willing to consent to be MY sub again, BDSM will not be a part of your relationship with me._ *

 _*Err, no,_ * Schuldig rolled his eyes and shook his head. _*I think most of us remember how badly THAT turned out. Besides,_ * he laughed. _*I suppose even I need some vanilla in my life once in a while!_ * He sighed, and hugged them tightly again before releasing them. _*C'mon, lovers. Let's go home.*_

Home... Omi thought nothing had ever sounded so good in his life.


End file.
